INGERSOLL'S 



NEW DEPARTURE 



REPLIES TO HIS FAMOUS LECTURE, 




PROF. SWING, BISHOP FALLOWS, DR. THOMAS, PROF. CURTIS, 
DR. LORIMER, DR. COURTNEY, AND OTHERS. 

(WITH THE LECTURE APPENDED.) 



Edited by J. JB. McOLURE. 



CHICAGO : 

RHODES & McCLURE, PUBLISHERS, 



'iNGERSOLL'S 



NEW DEPARTURE. 



REPLIES TO HIS FAMOUS LECTURE 



WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED; 



BY 



PROF. DAVID SWIXG, BISHOP FALLOWS, DR. H. 
W. THOMAS, PEOF. CURTIS, DE. LOEIMEE, 
DR. COURTNEY, AND OTHERS. 



WITH THE LECTURE'APPENDED. 



EDITED BY 

X. IB. O^EcOXjXJ^EI. 



CHICAGO: 

RHODES & McCLURE, PUBLISHERS. 
1881. 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1880, by 

J. B. McClure, and R. S. Rhodes, 

In the offi«e of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



/UNGBLUT, HENRICKS & Co., ElECTROTYPERS. 

Chicago. 




In his recent lectnre entitled " What Shall We Do to Be 
Saved?" (appended to the replies in this volume) Colonel 
Ingersoll has made a "new departure." So far as this lec- 
ture makes reference to Jesus Christ it is hailed with de- 
light. The references, however, made to " interpolations," 
etc., have called forth various " replies," the principal of 
which we have carefully put on record in this book. They 
are by Professor Swing, Dr. Thomas, Bishop Fallows, and 
others, whose learning and sincerity insure a " fair rejoin- 
der." We acknowledge our indebtedness to the press of 
the Garden City. 

J. J3. M'CLUKE. 

Chicago, October 1st, 1880. 




Page. 

Reply of Professor David Swing 17 

Col. Ingersoll's New Lecture under Prof. Swing's Stero- 
scope— He Finds it Witty, Powerful and Worthy of 

"All Fair Rejoinder " 17 

Matthew's Gospel 19 

The Colonel is Not Sound in the Faith 21 

Christianity Philosophically Considered— It Must Not be 

Confounded with the Follies of Man 22 

The Weak Points in Ingersoll's Lecture 25 

The Colonel's Cruel Advice, which He Himself Does 

Not Follow— A Solid Shot from Prof. Swing 26 

The Grand Architecture of Home— An Eloquent Per- 
oration 28 

Reply of Dr. H. W. Thomas 31 

Points Wherein the Doctor and the Colonel Agree and 

Differ— A Fair and Candid Rejoinder 31 

Ingersoll's New Departure— What the Doctor says 

About it 33 

The Teachings of Christ Emphasized— Character Rather 

Than Dogma ; . . 35 

vi. 



CONTENTS. vii. 

Page. 

Eeply of Dr. George C. Lorimer 39 

The Scope of the Lecture, and Not the Lecturer, undei 

Consideration— The Issue— Faith and Works 39 

Theology Progressive— Creeds, Faith, Etc — 41 

Ingersoll's Gospel under the Doctor's Microscope Shows 

a Fatal Contradiction— God Forgives, but "Bob'* is 

for " Inexorable Justice "—The Colonel, in Fact, an 

Extreme Calvinist 43 

Ingersoll Does Not Answer the Question, " What Shall 

We Do to Be Saved ? 44 

Authenticity of the New Testament 45 

The Gospel Plan of Salvation 47 

The Vital Kelation of Faith to the Soul— Its Elevating 

and Saving Power When Fixed on Jesus Christ 50 

Saved, Not for Faith's Sake, Nor Works' Sake, But for 

Christ's Sake 51 

Infidelity Unmasked. 53 

Reply of Professor Samuel Ives Curtis 55 

A Little Story— Ingersoll "Innocent of Greek," and 

the Consequences 55 

Ingersoll's Interpolations "Won't Do." 56 

Love and Obedience 58 

Faith in Christ the Great Basis of Salvation 60 

Reply of Dr. Frederick Courtney 63 

Preparatory Statement 63 

Ingersoll's Alleged Interpolations 64 

Clear, Pointed, and Pungent Answers to a Number of 

Ingersoll's Assertions 66 

How Shall We Account for the Kingdom of Christ ? . . . 70 

Christ the Summit of History -■ . ..... 72 



viii. CONTENTS. 

Page. 

The Facts of Faith— A Few Words About " Believing." 75 

More About Faith 77 

The Anathanasian Creed 81 

John Stuart Mill at Variance with Ingersoll on the 

Human Will 00 83 

The Gospel of Good Cooking— Does "Bob" Under- 
stand It? 84 

Reply of Bishop Fallows 87 

The Bishop Believes the Colonel Is Making "True 

Progress 87 

The Facts in the Case 88 

How Celsus, the Ingersoll of the Second Century, Did a 

Great Work for the Church 91 

Appended : Ingersoll's Lecture, " What Shall We Do to Be 

Saved?" , 93 

Ingersoll's Answer to Prof. Swing, Dr. Thomas, and 

Others 121 



REPLIES TO INGERSOLL'S 



NEW LECTURE, 

"XTVXieut Slxall "we do to IBe Sarv-ed.^ 

—BY- 
PROF. SWING, PROF. CURTIS, 
DR. THOMAS, BISHOP FALLOWS, 
DR. LORIMER, DR. COURTNEY, 

AND OTHERS. 



BEPLY OIF 1 PBOP. S^XTX^TG-, 



Col. Inger soil's New Lecture Under the Professor's Stereoscope— He Finds it 
Witty. Eloquent, Powerful, and " Worthy of All Fair Rejoinder." 

It has not been quite a year since, along with many other 

pastors of this city, I gave my personal convictions that, 

in order to be saved, man must, to the best of his ability, 

obey the laws of right. I attempted to show that whatever 

work Christ may have done to help man find the favor of 

the Supreme Judge, man must himself be a sincere doer of 

right things. Conduct is the path of safety. As earthly 

society depends for its quality and happiness upon the 

character of its members, so all society, in earth or in 

Heaven, must depend upon the actions and desires of the 

17 2 



18 REPLY TO INGERS OLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



individual members, come they from any clime or* age. I 
stated then my own opinions so fully that it would be 
wearisome to all of us to pass again over the same ground ; 
whence it will be my purpose this morning to point to some 
parts of Mr. Ingersoll's theory, rather than to discuss fully 
his theme of last Sunday, "What Must Man Do to Be 
Saved?" 

Much of the long address of the interesting speaker was 
aimed at the follies of an older time, at fanaticism, and 
ignorance, and cruelty; and should such wit poured out be- 
fore large audiences in all parts of the land only bring more 
fully to an end all such bad phases of human nature, it 
would not be labor lost. But, besides rendering unpopular 
old follies, this wit must tend to make contemptible some 
principles and persons true and noble; and for this reason 
it is not our privilege to pass in silence such an entertain- 
ing and even powerful discourse. I cannot find it in my 
heart or judgment to say, as many do, that such addresses 
are not " worth answering." 2\"ot only are all the speeches 
of that gentleman very acute and convincing, and therefore 
worthy of all fair rejoinder, but they are so original that 
they invite new lines of argument from the clergy, and en- 
able the pulpit to see itself and j^resent itself in many new 
and more rational lights. 

In this recent address there was much of rhetorical flour- 
ish that came from the speaker's love of the grotesque 
rather than from the direct merit of the case. All that was 
said about the interpolations in the writings of Matthew 
must be attributed to humor or recklessness. It might as 
well be affirmed that interested parties had inserted ideas 
freely into the manuscripts of Tacitus, or Seneca, or Yirgil, 
or that Tacitus or Seneca never saw the books which now 
bear their names. That memoir of Jesus is just as honest 
and genuine a manuscript as any piece of writing that has 



BY PROF. SWING. 



19 



come down from any far-off period. And, furthermore, a 
lawyer should set the clergy an example of that mental 
power which can discern at once the irrelevant and the rel- 
evant. We are all taught to look to the legal profession to 
learn how grand a thing is pure reason compared with 
mere feelings and superficial studies. But it now seems 
that this popular lawyer does not perceive that Christianity 
no more rests upon the accuracy of a manuscript than the 
United States rests upon the accuracy of Bancroft, or the 
glory of England upon the truth or capacity of her histo- 
rians. It may be that the man Matthew never saw that 
Gospel which we call Matthew. What is the inference? 
The book is simply anonymous. 

Matthew's Gospel. 

It was very common in that period for writings to be 
without a name. Many poems are, by a kind of courtesy, 
ascribed to Anacreon and Homer, and prose essays without 
number have come along through the classic period with 
no known authorship. Admitting, for the sake of argu- 
ment, that Matthew never wrote the Gospel which bears 
his name, and that to the nameless memoir many additions 
were made by persons who had some interest to secure, the 
conclusion to be drawn is that we must make a closer study 
of those times to find, if possible, what were the facts amid 
which that memoir of a Christ came into circulation. A 
great religious fact will no more depend upon a Matthew 
than a great political fact will depend upon a Hume, or a 
Gibbon, or a Macauiay. 

The younger Pliny, a Roman pagan and a political 
enemy of Christianity, lived in that very period out of 
which the Gospel history sprang, and, with his mind full 
of bitter prejudices, he wrote the following words to his 
Emperor, Trajan: " These Christians assemble on an ap- 
pointed time, and sing alternately the praises of Christ as a 



20 REPLY OT INQERSOLVS NEW LECTURE, 



Divine Being. They bind themselves by an oath not to 
•commit any crime, to abstain from theft and impure con- 
duct, to fulfill every promise, and not to deny any trust 
confided to them. Afterward they separate, and again 
come together to partake of an innocent repast." Thus we 
have a Gospel according to Pliny, a Gospel not in any way 
dependent uj>on Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and it is 
this stubborn historic fact that stands as the basi s of the 
modern religion. Those men and women who assembled 
together to sing responsive hymns to a Divine Being 
did also bind themselves by an oath to commit no crime, 
to steal nothing, to live purely, and to keep every promise, 
and not to refuse any duty confided to them. The same 
writer, Pliny, said that so many had entered into this holy 
compact that the temples of the Roman gods were daily 
becoming deserted, and the sale of animals for sacrifice had 
almost ceased. 

The salient point for such a pretentious reasoner as Mr. 
Ingersoll to attack was not what poor Matthew may have 
said about the new religion, but the merits of the new re- 
ligion itself, as it came along with its deep and glowing prin- 
ciples, and with its amazing Leader, before whom even the 
infidels all bow w T ith reverence. Along came that moral 
fact seen by Pliny, and Trajan, and Tacitus, and it gradually 
displaced the morals and belief of Rome, and wrought out 
for the world a new code of not only law and morals, but of 
a most tender charity. It would seem a better application 
of eloquence, and almost genius, should the public speaker 
under notice take the positive side of Christianity, and tell 
the young men that the world has never seen anything 
nobler, or more useful, or happier, than those compacts of 
integrity and purity which those thousands entered into 
when they met in the name of Christ and sang responsive 
hymns in the morning air. An orator who can gain the 



BY PROF. SWING. 



21 



ear and the heart, too, of tens of thousands of yonth onght 
not to teach them how to ridicule a Matthew or a Calvin, 
bnt rather teach them how to trace the risings of new phi- 
losophy full of righteousness and charity, and how to appre- 
ciate such an exalted being as Jesns Christ. 

The Colonel is not " Sound in the Faifh." 

Not only is all ridicule or criticism of Matthew irrelevant 
to any one speaking from the philosophic standpoint, but 
all the time and words spent against the idea of salvation 
by faith are wasted so far as Christianity is itself concerned. 
Such objections as were raised in the address of last Sun- 
day weigh against only those who hold to a salvation by be- 
lief. Doubtless there are some individual Christians who 
are expecting to be saved by faith, and there are some 
denominations which still make use of that formula of 
words ; but it is safe to say that the doctrine that man is 
saved by a belief is so far abandoned by the great denomin- 
ations that the Church no longer merits rebuke, or abuse, 
or laughter on account of that peculiar idea. A hundred 
years ago the Church universal needed much plain talk 
from infidel or from any one able to give it, for it did hold 
to a method of pleasing God that was false and deeply in- 
jurious. Luther declared that there was no sin for which 
faith in Christ would not be taken as an atonement or com- 
pensation in the day of final judgment. But this tenet has 
of late years rapidly become obsolete. Not one of the large 
denominations which now make up the Christian commun- 
ity would accept of what Martin Luther announces about 
the office of faith. They would join with the infidel in i 
affirming that faith cannot take in any manner the place of 
morality. By " faith " in Christ a fidelity to His teachings 
is generally understood. 

Salvation by faith is a salvation by a personal faithfulness 
to a great law and a great Master. What Pliny saw when 



22 



REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



he wrote to his Emperor that those new religionists assem- 
bled each morning and made pledges to each other in the 
name of Christ to do ne wrong, this taking of a solemn 
vow was the act of faith, which became a conspicuous part 
in the plan of safety. Instead of saving a wicked man, the 
first act of Christianity was to make each heart vow to be 
righteous, and benevolent, and virtuous. Faith in Christ 
implied an abandonment of Paganism as a religion, and of 
all immorality as a practice, and an espousal of that new 
leadership which appeared in Judea. And if Christ was 
indeed a person before whom even infidelity and atheism 
bow in reverence, this vow of faith was not an empty action 
in that olden time, and will not be in our day. Sent out to 
arrest and punish the early followers of Jesus, Pliny reported 
that he could not find them guilty of crimes, but only of a 
pitiable superstition. To the early Christian it therefore 
seemed a first requisite that they should live without crimes. 

Christianity Philosophically Considered— It Must Not he Confounded With 
the Follies of Man. 

If subsequent periods perverted that simple religion, and 
declared that a sinner could be saved by giving assent to 
certain doctrines, or that a sinner could buy Heaven by 
paying certain sums ot money into the treasury of a churchy 
all such events in the intellectual world must be classed 
among the blunders and vices of society. The institution 
of marriage cannot be held responsible for what the Mor- 
mons may have made of it on the one hand, or what the 
Oneida Community may have made of it on the other. That 
social compact must be looked at in all the lights, and must 
not be seen only in a Mormon settlement or in a divorce 
case. So the religion of our day cannot be justly painted 
by dipping the brush into the ugly, or pale, or dirty colors 
of ignorant and wicked times, but it can be seen rigbtly 
only by minds wide enough and fair enough to separate the 



B Y PROF. S WING. 23 

absolute from the incidental. There are many clergymen 
now engaged in active duty in their profession who, if they 
were compelled to find the doctrines of their Christianity 
in the books of only certain old Romanists and old Calvin- 
ists, would at once descend from their pulpits and join with 
those who live without God and without hope; but they 
remain, and remain with happy hearts, because there is a 
religion — a Christianity — that has not been ruined or even 
marred by any blundering man or blundering century. 

Mr. Ingersoll forgets how difficult it has always been for 
man to keep pure any form of philosophy. Suppose society 
should conclude to adopt the creed which this gentleman 
set forth a week ago, in what condition would he find that 
creed and the public practice of it should its author come 
back to earth in a hundred years and move about among 
his so-called apostles? Man is slow in finding the deepest 
and best meaning of any of his systems of action or thought. 
Republics have come and gone because men, even the 
wisest, find slowly the many details which must be com- 
bined to make the perfect and the enduring State. It is 
wondered yet whether our continent has found the republic- 
anism that will endure. That we have found many of the 
elements of power and durability all confess ; but there may 
be some defect in the moral education of the young, or some 
excess in our love of material things, that will in a half 
century begin to make our grand liberty-tree scatter in mid- 
summer its leaves, never to bud again. Thus all systems 
tremble as they move forward. Plato opened up a spiritual 
philosophy with the cardinal idea that the only valuable 
thing in the universe was the soul. It had not advanced 
far before it was joined by the idea that men ought, there- 
fore, to pay no regard to food or dress, but should develop 
only their power of thought. 

Christ found the world quite full of asceticism when He 



2f RE PL Y TO INGERSOLVS NE W LECTURE, 



came, and long after Christ it moved on, growing more 
insane as it advanced. Plotinus and others assumed that 
they had gotten away from their bodies, and were nothing 
but pure souls. This whole system was arrested at last by 
the practical ideas of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen- 
turies, and the doctrine of the soul was brought back to 
that middle ground of our period. After a long journey 
through darkness, the worth of both the body and the mind ' 
emerges into light. All fair enemies of Christianity will 
remember that ideas, like men, have their trials and sor- 
rows, and must be estimated, not in some one hour of their 
history, but in all their long and varied experience. In 
this manner we must all investigate the claims of religion. 
Like the politics of liberty, like the spiritualism of Plato, 
it has had to move through a wild and savage country. As 
the chariots of elegant queens in the fourteenth century 
often became stalled in the mud, and the royal personages 
must descend and wait for the slow help of slow levers and 
slow men, so the noble truths of some bright or divine mind 
often become mired when they attempt to cross a country 
or an age, and he only is able to speak wisely of a religion 
who has kept in mind the natural misfortunes of philoso- 
phies. 

It seems necessary, therefore, to arraign the popular 
speaker for three errors of judgment or information; an 
error regarding the importance of Matthew to the fact of 
Christianity; an error regarding the commonly-received 
doctrine of salvation by faith; an error of information as to 
the trials which befall all good ideas in their effort to gain 
foothold in the world. Let us note a fourth shape of weak- 
ness in the long discourse. All hearers and readers of the 
address were gratified by the following words : " Let me say, 
once for all, that to that great and serene man I gladly pay, 
I gladly pay the homage of my adoration and my tears." 



BY PROF. SWING. 



25 



The weakness of the address here lies in the assumption 
that that greatness and serenity which drew admiration 
and tears came into a world that had no religion, no church, 
no worship, no hope of another life, — the assumption that 
no causes had toiled in harmony to produce such a person- 
age as Jesus. 

The Weak Point in Ingersoll's Lecture. 

If a public teacher has found a man who is so worthy of 
a glad homage, this public teacher should have informed 
the large audience assembled what ideas and practices met 
together in Galilee to bring about such a character; and if 
Christ did not result from the gospel of good food and good 
clothes and good humor, our reformer should at least have 
confessed that great men had often come into society by 
other gates than those of the tailor, and the cook, and the 
humorist. Great indeed is the value of all those qualities 
and substances and conditions. Food, clothes, houses, 
laughter, friendship are all blessings seen too dimly by 
many; but a glance at such a being as Christ should in- 
stantly remind us that the heroes who have drawn "admir- 
ation and tears" have had poured into their souls other in- 
gredients, while in Christ religion was the ruling element. 

It ought to be an impressive fact that when a distin- 
guished enemy of all religion wishes to find one on earth to 
whom he will yield tearful reverence, he must seek for him 
and find him at the altar of God, teaching men to say, " Our 
Father who art in Heaven." In the hour of most need the 
philosophy of good food and good clothes fails our friend, 
and he must find a model of serene greatness in a man who 
had only a seamless coat, and who slept often houseless 
when even the foxes had holes and the birds their happy 
nests. 

JNot only did it become necessary for Mr. Ingersoll to 



26 



REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



borrow a religious name upon which to bestow deep re- 
gard, but it will always be necessary for him, after he has 
announced his philosophy of manhood, to go outside of it 
to find the manhood itself. The doctrines of good food and 
good clothes, and plenty of fresh air, and plenty of liberty, 
are valuable to society after certain other high doctrines 
have made the society, but as laws for making a great man- 
hood they are infinitely contemptible. The Roman glut 
tons had plenty of good food; the Arabs in the mountains 
had plenty of liberty; the American Indians always have 
had plenty of fresh air. The wise lawyer's rules and regu- 
lations of man and home are excellent where some other 
rules and regulations, as in England and America, may 
have first made the man and the home. 

Mr. Ingersoll's system could give a better wardrobe to 
the man of Nazareth, could spread for him a better feast 
than the one Martha set before him, could put, indeed, a 
pillow of down under the weary head, but it could not first 
produce the JNazarene himself. Mr. Ingersoll's final phi- 
losophy can explain a tailor-shop or a dining-room, but it 
cannot explain the human race. It is ignorant as a child 
of the causes that have made all that is great in humanity, 
and that will continue to make. 

The Colonel's Cruel Advice Which He Himself Does Not Follow— A Solid 
Shot From the Professor. 

Let us allude now to the fifth error of the discourse. It 
unites with all of the gentleman's speeches in advising the 
public to build no churches, to attend no church, but to 
put into homes the money which they have been accus- 
tomed to waste in so-called houses of God. This advice is 
hasty, and even cruel, for many reasons. It will be admit- 
ted that some centuries did rob the home that they might 
build the temple. And one can yet see something of this 
form of injustice in our world. But the world is outgrow- 



BY PROF. SWING. 



27 



ing this form of folly, and we all live in a broad West, 
where the country and village church rises up among the 
trees in great simplicity. Complaints that we have applied 
to Europe in the far past cannot, by any mind that wishes 
to be reasonable, be laid against the simple sanctuaries 
which so adorn this new continent. A lecturer's fee for a 
.night, a clergyman's fee for a month, would make ready 
for use one of those village meeting-houses, which would 
assemble the dear children together for a generation, that 
they might study that Man who elicits from even infidels 
sympathetic tears. 

Look into this advice more deeply. All valuable moral 
truths must be regularly and faithfully taught. The pri- 
vate home is confessed, both in philosophy and song, to be 
the most blessed spot on earth, but not out of those private 
dwellings has the education of the world proceeded. The 
young and old have been compelled by the laws of instruc- 
tion to meet together in companies larger than and quite 
different from the one which assembles by the fireside. 
Hence politics has had its forum or senate, art its school 
and gallery, philosophy its porch, and morals or piety its 
temple. To these the throng has repaired. Home has its 
own peculiar virtue. There is no language eloquent enough 
to describe home. The song of home is destined to be 
immortal, but, after all, that mighty thing called society 
has poured out of quite other gates. Men assemble to- 
gether, and behold! after they have studied, and taught, and 
learned, mind to mind and heart to heart, up has risen a fine 
art, or a science, or a politics, or a religion. 

Our lecturer refused his own advice; for, in order to 
teach his own views, he had to seek for a temple, not built 
for a dwelling-house, but for a school and an arena of art. 
Hemanding us all to the walls of our private houses, and 
telling us to put our gold into only our houses, he asked us 



28 



REPLY TO INGERSOLL'8 NEW LECTURE!, 



to postpone obeying the advice until we had come out to 
an expensive building to hear from him the laws of life and 
salvation. It would seem that the dwelling-house theory 
were not designed to apply to the enemies of religion, but 
only to its friends. Persons who will iaugh at piety may 
assemble in elegant halls ; those who love the idea of a God 
and a heaven should cease to meet in churches or halls, and 
should build up the walls of their homes! 

The Grand Architecture of " Home "—An Eloquent Peroration. 

Assuming that the orator is right his eulogy of the place 
called home, assuming that he cannot plant one flower too 
many by the door or window or wake up too much joy or 
laughter and music within, yet we dare not be ignorant of 
the fact that no such home has come or can come to a nation 
that has no God and no temple of hymn and incense. 
Home is not an isolated fact, but it is a result. The arts 
and the sciences, all the learning and wisdom of the world 
have made their contributions toward the beautiful little 
result called home. 

There is not a farmhouse or a palace in England, not a 
cottage in New England, not a mansion along the Hudson, 
or upon the avenue of any city that has not resulted from 
a blending together of all past learning, and taste, and 
morals, and piety. Could you dissect the idea of home and 
find the nerves of its structure, it would be found that 
thoughts of God and of a future life, which will gather to- 
gether all those scattered here, form a strange and tender 
part of this house where the parents and the children meet 
and part. Atheists come upon our homes already built; 
but they neglect to ask, they dare not ask, what built them ? 
Must we tell them that beneath the homes of France, of 
Germany, of England, of America, there is lying a civili- 
zation made tender by all the broad and deep teachings oi 



BY PROF. SWING. 



2S 



religion? Food, and furniture, and laughter, and joy did 
not make these blessed abodes of man. The atheist can 
decorate these homes, but he did not make them. Beneath 
them is a belief in God, a deep pathos of life and death, 
and deep hope in a life to come after the earthly house of 
encampment has been dissolved. 

Into these walls where we all live pass, as component 
parts, the tears and prayers of saints and martyrs. The 
songs and hymns of our fathers are more significant ele- 
ments than the brick, and wood, and marble; the frequent 
trips of the children to the sanctuary across the open field 
or along the crowded street have, in building up the mod- 
ern home, surpassed the architect and the mason. Atheism 
can live happily in a home which hands more divine have 
fabricated from the world's rich dust. 



i 



Points Wherein the Doctor and Colonel Agree and Differ— A Fair and 
Candid Rejoinder. 

[As the Pulpit of the Centenary Church was supplied by a visiting candidate, 
the Rev. Dr. Thomas contributed the following letter :] 

I have no desire , to differ from Col. Ingersoll where it is 
possible for us to agree. The disposition to antagonize — 
to seek to find points of difference, rather than points of 
agreement, has, perhaps, often led both parties in religions 
debates to magnify each other's real or supposed errors. 
We should rather seek to know as far as we may the exact 
truth, and give it full credit wherever found. This seems 
to be the spirit in which the lecturer sought to stand before 
his great congregation. I would reciprocate this as fully 
as I can, and say, " Let us see wherein we can agree?" Let 
us say that the time for meditation has arrived in the pro- 
found questions of thought ; not of compromise of principle 
or fact, but of harmony where harmony is possible. Such 
a spirit will do much to soften the severity of discussions, 
and it will be a mental and moral help to all parties. 

And first, in reference to Col. Ingersoll's plea for the 
right and the duty of all to think and to reason. He says: 
" I belong to the republic of intellectual liberty, and only 
those are good citizens of that republic who depend upon 
reason and upon persuasion, and only those are traitors who 
resort to- brute lorce." In this we can agree. I belong to 
the same, and I indorse that statement. 1 agree with him 
also in not thinking that " people who disagree with me are 

31 



32 REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 

bad people," and that mankind are generally " reasonably 
honest;" and that most "ministers are endeavoring to make 
this world better." I agree with him when he claims the 
right to think, and for the two reasons that " I like, too, and 
and I can't help it." I like to think, and I can't help it; 
and will add, that I would not "help it" if I could." But 
here we should distinguish between proper freedom to 
think, and what is loosely called " free thought." Freedom 
to think should be the right of all ; but there is not, and 
there cannot be, any such thing as "free thought," unless it 
is in a bad sense. And for this reason, that all thought is 
conditioned, first, by the laws of thought ; and secondly, by 
the facts, and the things about which we think. All normal 
mental freedom must submit to these natural limitations. 
And in this I think Mr. Ingersoll will fully agree with me. 

In the second place, I agree with much that the Colonel 
has to say* about the good that is in the Christian religion. 
He says: "There are many good things about it. I be- 
lieve that. He says: " I will never attack anything that I 
believe to be good, and will never fail to attack anything I 
honestly believe to be wrong." In this we can agree, also. 
I will join hands with the Colonel in defending what I 
believe to be right, and in opposing what I believe to be 
wrong. But I cannot agree with him when, in the next 
sentence, he says : 

We have, I say, what they call the Christian religion, and, I find 
just in proportion that nations have been religious, just in the 
proportion they have gone back to barbarism. I find that Spain, 
Portugal, Italy are the three worst nations in Europe. I find that 
the nation nearest infidel is the most prosperous— France. 

I think the fairness in debate for which the Colonel 
claims to stand, should have led him to discriminate be- 
tween religion and superstition, or the abuse of religion. 
He is a friend of liberty, but he would not think it fair to 
charge liberty with all the abuses and the wrongs wrought 



BY DR. THOMAS. 



in the name of liberty. The Colonel indorses the teachings 
of Jesus as to purity of heart, and mercy, and justice, and 
forgiveness. "We certainly gather from his lecture that he 
believes these to be the essence, the very spirit of religion, 
and he certainly would not claim that the more a nation 
had of these, the worse it would be; and, if not, it is hardly 
fair to charge the bad state of Spain, Portugal, and Italy to 
religion. Why not say that in those countries the spirit 
of the teachings of true religion has been corrupted and 
turned to base purposes. 

In the third place, I can agree with much that the lec- 
turer says about Christ. I was glad to read his clear, 
manly words, when he said: 

And let me say here, once for all, that for the man Christ I have 
infinite respect. Let me say, once for all, that the place where 
man has died for man is holy ground ; and let me say, once for all, 
to that great and serene man I gladly pay the homage of my ad- 
miration and my tears. He was a reformer in His day. He was 
an infidel in His time. He was regarded as a blasphemer, and His 
life wa3 destroyed by hypocrites, who have, in all ages, done what 
they could to trample freedom out of the human mind. Had I 
lived at that time I would have been his friend, and should He 
come again, He would not find a better friend than I will be. 

Ingersoll's New Departure— What the Doctor says About it. 

This seems to be a new departure, or at least a step be- 
yond where the Colonel has taken his stand in previous 
lectures; though I do not recall a single instance where h>> 
has said anything against the life of Christ — that is, His 
lite as a man. My heart is with him in those noble senti 
ments. I am glad he spoke so freely and so sincerely. "Wit! 
him I feel that the " place where man dies for man is hoi; 
ground ;" and with him I pay to that " serene man th> 
homage and the admiration of my tears." I think with 
the Colonel, also, that Jesus was regarded by the Church of 
that day as an " infidel " and a " blasphemer," and that He 

3 



84 



REPLY TO INGERSOLVS NEW LECTURE, 



was put to death by those who claimed to be the only relig- 
ious people of the time, and who looked upon everybody 
who did not accept their teachings and mode of life as sinners. 
But then 1 have to get the facts of that great and good life 
from the very books of the New Testament that the 
Colonel labored so hard to cast suspicion upon as being un- 
reliable, and not written till " hundreds of years after," 
and as coming from confused and conflicting manuscripts. 
Speaking further of Christ, the lecturer says : 

For the theological creation I have a different feeling. If He 
was, in fact, God, He knew there was no such thing as death. He 
knew that what we call death was but the eternal opening of the 
golden gates of everlasting joy; and that it took no heroism to 
face a death that was simply eternal life. 

I will admit that some of the " theological " conceptions 
of Christ may have served to confuse the mind; but then, 
in the calmest exercise of that very reason for which" my 
excellent friend makes so strong a plea, I am compelled to 
think that there was in that life something more than 
human. Approach it where you will ; touch it at any point 
from the " conception" to the last scenes of the cross, and 
the resurrection, and the ascension, and it all seems to be 
of a piece; it is consistent with itself throughout; it moves 
along on its own unique and majestic plane. "We have the 
picture before us; we have the marvelous facts; and for me 
it is easier — a less strain upon the reason — to accept the 
account as given; to accept the, to us, supernatural, in that 
life, than to account, for it in any other way. How could 
the unlettered disciples — plain, common men— have cre- 
[ ated such a character? How could such marvelous results 
have flown from the life of one who was only a man? 
Wiser and better than other men, but yet only a man. 
I am in worse mental trouble when I attempt to put 
away the divine., the supernatural in Christ, and the 



BY JOB. THOMAS 



scriptures and religion, than when I accept it, "Witt 
me it is a way out of difficulty, rather than a way int~ 
difficulty; and "I gladly pay the homage 01 my admi- 
-?.tion and tears 35 to Him not only as a ei serene man," but 
to that higher being who is the Son of God, as well as the 
Son of Man. To me He is that being brought into exist- 
ence by a special, or an. exceptional, creation, and in whom 
God is revealed to the world. And this makes it all the 
more easy for me to understand His deep and tender sym- 
pathy — His tears, His prayers, His agony in the garden 
and on the cross. As a man, Jesus had the susceptibilities 
to pain, and in a measure, to fear, common to men. As 
"Tmmanuel," as God with us, there was an upper and 
higher sweep to his whole life; and it was the dwelling of 
this divine nature within him that so quickened and exalted 
all his sensibilities and made possible a degree of suffering 
to us perhaps unknown. 

I think that when we enter into the real life of Christ, 
His outward sufferings were but the' smallest part; the 
mere symbol; the "flag of distress" thrown out to arrest 
our coarse sense. The real agony was within. It was the 
suffering of love — love slighted and rejected; love scorned 
and crucified by those He came to save. It was the burden 
of the cold, cruel world put upon Him in the last hours of 
a life that had been only tender and merciful to all. He 
feared not " the change we call death." To Him there was 
no "death;" and yet a horror worse than any mere death 
gathered about that awful hour. 

The Teachings of Christ Emphasized— Character rather than Dogma. 

A word in the fourth place, about Christ's teachings, as 
to what man must do to be saved. I can agree with Col. 
Ingersoll that these are reliable — whenever or by whoever 
written. And I believe with him that Christ put emphasis 



36 



REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



upon character rather than upon dogma; npon what we are 
rather than what we profess or what, in a technical sense, 
we believe. Of course, great beliefs must underlie 
the very principles of purity and mercy and justice 
that He taught. I must believe that the pure and merciful 
and just will be saved. They are saved already; for to have 
such qualities is to have salvation. It may not, indeed, be 
a " theological" or a " regulation" salvation — that is a sal- 
vation according to a "creed;" but it is what is far better; 
it is salvation, in fact. And I agree with the Colonel in the 
absurdity of the old Athanasian creed, over which he had 
so much fun, when it says that whosoever will be saved 
" first of all it is necessary to hold the Catholic faith," and 
then goes on to define that faith in terms, the meaning of 
which only those who have made of theology a profound 
study can have the most distant conception ; and then closes 
up by saying that " except one do thus believe he shall 
perish everlastingly." That was an error of the creed-mak- 
ing age. The Protestant Episcopal Church does not retain 
that creed, and the Church of England holds it only be- 
cause it does not know how to get rid of it. An effort was 
made some years ago in England to lighten the formal 
terms of subscription, but it failed. 

But I should think the Colonel did not get all the teach- 
ings of Christ in reference to salvation; not all of Matthew, 
even. Jesus taught not only the inner principles of salva- 
tion as it is found in character, but He taught that men 
should pray; that they should deny themselves and take up 
the cross and follow Him. He taught that men should re- 
pent and be converted. But still, I agree with the lecturer 
that we should put more stress upon principles and con- 
duct, and less upon creeds, and I will join him in pressing 
these things upon the Church and upon the world. 

It was not the purpose of this paper (begun at 9 o'clock 



BY DR. THOMAS. 



87 



oa Saturday evening, and now about finished before 11) to 
review in any full sense this long lecture, but rather to look 
at some things in which we can agree ; and to suggest some 
points on which my own faith goes beyond. There are 
some very palpable, even remarkable errors, or mistakes, 
in statement that I have no doubt some of our clergy will 
find pleasure in exposing. And yet there are many things 
in it that cannot fail to make an impression upon many 
who have heretofore regarded the Colonel's lectures as only 
blasphemous. And I want to say to my friend that I 
think there is one point in which he should be more 
careful. I like all he says about liberty, and not causing 
pain to others. But when I read his lectures — and I have 
read them all — I am compelled to feel that he is not suffi- 
ciently mindful of the feelings of many good people who 
differ from him on matters of belief. He ought to practice 
in this respect what he preaches. 

And he will not blame me for another word, and that is? 
with so many manly utterances for honesty and fairness^ 
he should be careful not to permit his love of fun, and the 
laughter and applause of the people who hear, to lead him 
to indulge in unjust caricatures of things sacred, or to make 
unfair statements for the sake of gaining a point. I think 
his denunciation of the old and terrible ideas of endless 
punishment, and the gross and shocking views that hav e 
been sometimes held concerning a penal atonement, are not 
wholly uncalled for. I fear the teachers of religion have in 
some things made an occasion for some of his lectures ; but 
even admitting all this, there is still a law of the congruous, 
a sense of the fitting, or of what is proper in the discus- 
sion of themes that have been in all ages and literature 
accounted sacred. Less extravagance, more care in state- 
ment, and fairness in reason, and with all more reverence, 
is what our lecturer needs to cultivate. 



Tlie Scope of the Lecture, and Not the Lecturer, Under Consideration— The 
Issue— Faith and Works. 

It has, I believe, been intimated by Col. Eobert G. In- 
gersoll that his clerical critics are usually more inclined to 
consider him personally than the merits of his ideas, and 
he justly resents so grave a departure from the amenities 
of debate. The fault complained of cannot be too severely 
condemned, for it is certain when controversies degenerate 
into attacks on individuals who advocate objectionable 
views, and are not directed against the views themselves, an 
amount of prejudice is engendered fatal to the .discovery or 
defense of truth. Into so serious an error I shall take care 
not to fall. 

Being a member of that unfortunate body, of whom 
Jeremy Taylor, so approvingly quoted by Col. Ingersoll, 
wrote " were as much to be rooted out as anything that was 
the greatest pest and nuisance on earth," but who, if Ban_ 
croft and Lecky are to be -credited, have been from the be- 
ginning the steadfast friends ot unlimited freedom of 
thought and of speech, I have it not in my nature to call in 
question the honesty of any man's opinions, or to deny his 
right to disseminate them as widely as he can. Indeed, I 
am related to a people who have for so long a time been in 
the minority, and who have been compelled to suffer so 
much for their antagonism to the tyranny of both church 
and state, that I can hardly refrain from a kind of admir- 
ing sympathy with iconoclasts, even when their sturdy 

39 



40 



REP LI TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE 



blows are directed against my own most cherished convic- 
tions. Influenced by 6uch feelings, yon will not be sur- 
prised if, in reviewing some portions of Col. Ingersoll's 
lecture, I confine myself strictly to their representations, 
and avoid unnecessary reference to the lecturer himself. 

The avowed design of the lecture alluded to was to 
answer the all-important question: "What must I do to be 
saved ? " a question that has engaged the thought of many 
burdened generations, and which only irreverent shallow- 
ness would treat with laughter and derision; and in furnish- 
ing a reply, it was claimed that orthodox Christians teach 
"the justification of the sinner by faith alone; not any 
words, just faith — believing something you do not under- 
stand." This statement is in various ways repeated in the 
published reports of the discussion. For instance, when 
the passage is quoted in which the Lord is represented as 
judging, the following comment appears as a fair account 
of what is currently taught: "'He shall reward every 
man' — to the church he belongs to? No. To the man- 
ner in which he was baptized? No. According to his 
creed? No. * He shall reward every man according to his 
works,'" the impression conveyed being that we advocate 
what is here so emphatically negatived. 

Similar queries are propounded in connection with our 
Savior's interview with Zaccheus, and with the same end in 
view; and after a dissertation on the Romish creed, it is 
asserted, " In order to be saved it is necessary to believe 
this. What a mercy it is that man can get to heaven with- 
out understanding it." All denominations are classed 
together as conditioning salvation on the reception of some 
such doctrinal formula, and on this assumption are made 
the subjects of infinite merriment. Unquestionably the 
Tridentine Decrees are fairly open to criticism, and un- 
doubtedly some old Protestant confessions are not clear of 



BY DR. L0R1MER. 



41 



the error charged against them ; but though this must be 
conceded, it does not follow that the pulpit of the present 
makes the eternal welfare of the soul depend on intellectual 
belief. If it ever did so, it has long since found out its 
mistake. 

Theology Progressive— Creeds, Faith, Etc. 

Theology, like any other science, is far from being per- 
fect ; progress has distinguished it, and must continue to 
do so. In the course of its advancement it has come to be 
more fully recognized that whatever saving faith may mean, 
it does not involve subscription to a creed, however ortho- 
dox. A man may hold to the " five points " and to even as 
many more " points " as he pleases, and yet be a stranger 
to God's grace. He may even contend sincerely for the 
verbal inspiration of scripture, and still have no assurance 
of Divine acceptance. "Devils believe and tremble;" and 
the same is true of men. Creeds have their place. They 
summarize what is held by a particular body of disciples ; 
they form convenient compendiums for reference, and they 
impart definiteness to an organization, but they have no 
more efficiency in the salvation of a soul than a prescrip- 
tion has in the healing of a body. A prescription may 
guide an invalid to the means of health, and a confession 
of faith may accurately point out the way of everlasting 
life; but if the prescription is swallowed instead of the 
remedy, or the confession is relied on instead of the Savior, 
the result in the one case will be about as vain as the other. 
Consequently it is mere waste of time and energy to labor 
to disprove, what is far from being generally held, if held 
at all in Protestant circles, that intellectual belief is indis- 
pensable to the eternal well-being of the soul. 

In rejecting this answer to the great inquiry, one of two 
others is suggested: the first as embodying the alleged opin- 



42 



REPLY TO INGERSOLVS NEW LECTURE, 



ions of Matthew, Mark, and Luke; the second as expressing 
the conviction of the lecturer himself. Several texts are col- 
lated from the whole writings of these three Evangelists to 
sustain the view that they predicated salvation exclusively of 
works, and every utterance of theirs that seems to point to 
anything else is repudiated as an interpolation. Of the 
warrant for discriminating in this manner between the 
words of the same testimony I shall speak by and by; at 
present I am only concerned to remind you of the unmeas- 
ured approval which the lecture under consideration lavishes 
on this interpretation. 

"We have, for instance, this commendation of the Sermon 
on the Mount: "If you will forgive men that trespass 
against you, God will forgive your trespasses against him. 
I accejDt, and I never will ask any God to treat me better 
than I treat my fellow-men. There's a square promise. 
There's a contract — and it must of necessity be true. No 
God could afford to damn a forgiving man." Then, after 
the text: "He shall reward every man according to his 
works," the exclamation follows: "Good! I subscribe to 
that doctrine." Subsequently the rule of judgment, that is 
mentioned in the twenty -fifth chapter of Matthew, elicits 
this fervent eulogy; "I tell you to-night that God will 
not punish with eternal thirst the man who has put a cup 
of cold water to the lips of his neighbor; God will not allow 
to live in the eternal nakedness of pain the man who has 
clothed others. For instance: Here is a shij) wreck, and 
here is some brave sailor, who stands aside to let a woman 
that he never saw before take his place in a boat. He stands 
there great and serene as the wide sea, and he goes down. 
Do you tell me there is any God who will push the boat 
from the shore of eternal life when that man wishes to step 
in? Do you tell me that God can be unpitying to the piti- 
ful; that He can be unforgiving to the forgiving? I deny it. 



BY DR. LORIMER. 



43 



And from the aspersions of the pulpit I seeks to rescue the 
reputation of the Deity." 

IngersolTs Gospel under the Doctor's Microscope Shows a Fatal Contradic- 
tion— God Forgives, but " Bob " is for Inexorable Justice "—The 
Colonel in Fact an Extreme Calvanist. 

It is my turn to say, " Good ! " but how does this firm 
approval of what is claimed to be the apostolic scheme of 
salvation comport with the lecturer's personal convictions 
on the same subject ? His own position is diametrically 
opposed to what he has so elegantly extolled. Here it is in 
his own words: "I believe in the gospel of justice, — that 
we must reap what we sow. I do not believe in forgive- 
ness. If I rob Mr. Smith, and God forgives me, how does 
that help Smith? If I by slander cover some poor girl with 
the leprosy of some imputed crime, and she withers away 
like a blighted flower, and afterward I get forgiveness, how 
does that hel p her ? If there is another world, we have got 
to settle. * * * For every crime you commit you must 
answer to yourself and to the one you injure. And if^ou 
have ever clothed another with unhappiness as with a gar- 
ment of pain, you will never be quite as happy as though 
you hadn't done that thing. No forgiveness, eternal, inex- 
orable, everlasting justice — that is what I believe in." Here 
is a Draconian evangel with a vengeance ! 

In what essential respect does this differ from the most 
extreme and rigid Calvinism. If one is an upper mill- 
stone, the other is the nether; if one is a land-slide, the 
other is an earthquake ; if the one is hopelessness, the other 
is despair; if the one is blackness, the other is starless 
night ; if the one is a shroud, the other is a coffin, and if the 
one is a grave, the other is a charnel-house. I had thought 
from what had so earnestly been commended by the lecture, 
that there must be some healing balm in charity, some 
purifying efflorescence in pity, some sweetening aroma in 



44 REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



patient gentleness, and some heavenly grace and beauty in 
the spirit of forgiveness; but no; if the only real and divine 
thing in the universe is "eternal, inexorable, everlasting 
justice," these qualities are emptied of their significance 
and worth; yea, they must be regarded as positive evils, 
running counter as they do to the absolute sovereignty of 
merciless retribution, and society should convert itself into 
an organized feud, and its people into ravening wolves. If 
this latest gospel is true, then the sailor would not be saved 
on account of the heroism so beautifully described unless 
throughout his life he had been perfectly blameless in the 
dealings with others; nor could the dying thief have been 
saved "because he "pitied innocence suffering on the cross," 
though we are assured that he was by the lecturer, as he 
certainly had committed wrong against his fellow -beings. 
And if it is true that tdiere is nothing to be looked for in 
the future "but inexorable, everlasting justice," then it is 
not true "that God cannot afford to damn any man capable 
of pitying anyone." 

Ingersoll Does Hot Answer the Question, " What Must We Do to Be Saved V 9 

Which of these two solutions of the momentous problem 
are we to regard as entitled to credence? "Which shall we 
adopt ? They cannot both be reasonable and worthy of all 
acceptation, for they are destructive of each other. If the 
first be true, the second is not; and if the second is, then 
there is no place for the just. The encampment of forgive- 
ness cannot withstand the stern fortress of unfaltering jus- 
tice; and the breath of all-loving mercy is fatal to the sign 
of unapproachable Nemesis. Again, I ask, which theory 
shall we believe? One or the other 5 or neither? Obviously 
the lecture does not help us to a decision} for its glaring 
contradictions only make certain that its clever author is 
not clear in his own mind as to what humanity must do to 



BY DR. LORIMER. 4S 

be saved, and that we must look elsewhere for a satisfactory 
answer. And to whom shall we look for the much needed 
light if not to Christ ? If not to that being for whom the 
lecturer expresses such high regard that he is ready to pay 
him the tribute of his " admiration and his tears." As it is 
conceded that He should inspire us with " infinite respect," 
and admitted that He in some sense " died for man," we 
cannot surely do better than lay to heart, and receive as 
final His doctrine regarding the salvation of the soul. 

But how shall we ascertain what He taught? Permit 
me to reply, by asking another question, how does Col. In- 
gersoll know that Jesus was a " great and serene man," one 
deserving the confidence of his friendship, and " the ad- 
miration of his tears?" We are reminded that He never 
directed anything to be written, and never wrote anything 
Himself, except some words in the sand. From whence 
then comes the information which enables the lecturer to 
form80 high an estimate of His character? Evidently it 
is derived from the New Testament, for there are no other 
documents to which an appeal can be carried. If then it 
is sufficiently reliable to warrant us in accepting its por- 
traiture of Christ, it may certainly be trusted when it 
undertakes to set before us the doctrine that He preached. 

Authenticity of the New Testament. 

It may not be amiss at this point to suggest a few addi- 
tional thoughts bearing on the authenticity of this book. 
The statement that " it was not written for hundreds of 
years after the Apostles were dust" is utterly devoid of 
proof. Ty the gospels were in circulation by the close of 
the first century is the belief of the world's most eminent 
scholars, a belief abundantly confirmed by Irenceus, Paplas, 
Tertullian, and Origen. The assertion that they were orig- 
inally written in Hebrew, and that, as the copies are all in 



46 BE PL Y TO INGERSOLL $ NE W LECTURE, 



Greek, a language which it is assumed the disciples did not 
understand, no confidence can be placed in their reported 
authorship, is gratuitous and untr us worthy. Thoughtful 
rationalists, who have studied this subject carefully, hesitate 
to venture on such untenable ground. According to the 
best authorities, in our Lord's day the Greek language was 
current in Palestine; and it is needless to say that such 
writers as Lightfoot, Alford, De Wette, and Lueke have 
assigned good and sufficient reasons for believing that the 
gospels were the work of the men to whom they are com- 
monly ascribed. But even were there serious doubts upon 
this point, it should not be overlooked that it is simply 
incredible that centuries alter Christ a company of unknown 
men should have been able to impose on the churches as 
apostolic, writings that radically differed from the doctrine 
fixed and accepted among them ; and if they are in substan- 
tial agreement, as undoubtedly they are, then, for the pur- 
poses of this discussion, we may accept with confidence 
their report ot what Christ taught concerning the salvation 
of trie soul. And if we attach to them enough importance 
to call them to the witness-stand at all, we are bound to 
receive their whole testimony, and not to garble it to suit 
our own views. 

To reject every statement that mitigates against our 
opinions as interpolations, or to discriminate between wit- 
nesses whose claims on our attention are equally valid, sim- 
ply because one seems to be more pronounced against us 
than the others, only betrays a determination to make good 
a position at any hazard. Such a course is illogical and 
unjustifiable. For it to be pursued in any other investiga- 
tion than that of religion, would expose its author to cen- 
sure and condemnation. If the Evangelists are entirely 
untrustworthy, do not appeal to them at all ; but if you are 
going to admit their testimony, admit the whole of it; any 



BY DR. LORIMER. 



47 



other course is not only inconsistent, it will prove inconclu- 
sive as well. 

The Gospel Plan of Salvation. 

Believing, then, that we have in this volume a faithful 
transcript of the Savior's teachings, let us draw near to it, 
earnestly inquiring, "What must we do to be saved?" 
The text, which I have chosen on which to rest my argu- 
ment, teaches that salvation is the end or the result of faith. 
What, it will be asked, is it possible that good works have 
nothing to do with eternal life? I say not that; I would 
not seem even to imply that. Throughout the New Testa- 
ment the strongest emphasis is laid on the indispensable- 
ness of virtue, both in its root and flavor. It is expressly 
declared that evil-doing bars the gates of the kingdom — 
" they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom 
of God," and it is written: ' l Blessed are they that do His 
commandments, that they may have right to the tree of 
life, and may enter in through the gates into the city." 
We do not teach, nor are others authorized to teach, that 
the beatitudes pronounced by Jesus in the Sermon on the 
Mount are available to any who fail to comply with the 
conditions. They who receive the benediction must breathe 
the spirit on which it depends, and they who are looking 
for forgiveness must not fail to be forgiving in their turn. 
I know of no salvation that regards these moral and spir- 
itual excellencies as superfluous. At this point we have 
no serious controversy with the statements made in the 
lecture before us, however one may object to the manner in 
which they are put. We all hold to the great truth that, 
" without holiness, no man shall see the Lord," and that 
"the grace of God that bringeth salvation" teaches us " to 
deny ungodliness and worldly crests, and to live soberly, 
righteously, and godly in this present world." And, who- 



43 



REPLY TO INGERSOLVS NEW LECTURE, 



soever represents us to the contrary, gives currency to a 
slander as foul as it is false. 

But, while this position is to be maintained most 
earnestly, it is impossible to read the New Testament with- 
out arriving at the conclusion that, in some very real sense, 
faith is interwoven with the soul's salvation.* To escape 
from this fact, Col. Ingersoll has been obliged to manipu- 
late his witnesses, and to reject, altogether, the testimony 
of one who has as good a right to be heard as the others. 
Certainly, John teaches " He that belie veth on the Son hath 
everlasting life," and shows how dependent we all are upon 
Christ for salvation. This is not called in question, and wo 
need not therefore multiply texts in its defense. That the 
same doctrine runs through the epistles will hardly be 
seriously denied. " Therefore, being justified by faith, we 
have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, " " in 
whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of 
truth, the gospel of your salvation," are texts which indi- 
cate the direction of apostolic thought upon this subject. 
When we turn back to three Evangelists we find the same 
doctrine, not only implied, but expressed. In the account 
given by Mark of our Lord's first preaching we find him 
saying, " The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is 
at hand; repent ye and believe the gospel." And the great 
commission under which the Apostles were to act, and which 
last Sunday came in for no small amount of vituperative 
eloquence, is but an echo of this original proclamation. 
The same writer represents Christ as saying to Peter, 
"Have faith in God;" and on another occasion he records 
the fact that " seeing their faith," he said, " Be of good 
cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee." Indeed, all the benefits 
conferred by Christ's ministry presuppose the existence of 
faith in Him as the Messiah. He not only directly asks the 
people whether they possess it, but speaks of His gracious 



BY DR. LORIMER, 



49 



purposes as being hindered by their unbelief. When he 
says to them, " Come to me, all ye that labor and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest; take my yoke upon you 
and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart, and 
ye shall find rest unto your souls," confidence in Himself is 
necessarily implied. How could they take Him at His 
word unless they were moved to do so by their faith? 

I admit that there is growth and development in the 
New Testament teachings on this subject, as on every other 
with which it is concerned. There were reasons why the 
people should be gradually led up step by step to the 
apprehension of the doctrines of grace, and he must be blind 
who fails to discern this advancement in the writings of 
the Apostles. But notwithstanding this admission, the 
germs of all that was afterward more fully elaborated 
appears in the utterances of the Savior. Do the Apostles 
dwell on the necessity of our becoming " new creatures ?" 
Not only does John represent Jesus as saying: " Ye must 
be born again," but Matthew, Mark, and Luke describe 
Him as preaching " repentance," which is one aspect of the 
same thing, and as insisting on the tree being made good 
if we would have the fruit good as well. Do they magnify 
His gracious dying for the world ? They were anticipated 
by Him of whom they wrote, for during His ministry, as 
reported by Matthew, He claimed " to give His life a ran- 
som for many," and in the institution of the last supper 
said: "This is my blood of the new covenant, which is 
shed for many for the remission of sins." And thus faith, 
too, proceeded from the earliest intimations of its import- 
ance to grow in clearness, until in the epistles it appears 
distinctly defined as to its nature and value, and we might 
just as well deny to the full head of wheat the existence of 
the germ from whence it sprang, as to deny to the com- 



4 



50 



REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



pieted conception of this grace in the apostolic writings 
its rootage in the earliest works of our Lord Himself. 

o 

The Vital Relation of Faith to the Soul— Its Elevating and Saving Power 
When Fixed on Jesus Christ. 

We are now prepared to advance another step in this 
investigation. How comes it that faith is made to sustain 
so vital a relation to the eternal welfare of the soul? My 
first answer is, because it is the source of godliness in heart 
and life. Paul when writing to the Thessalonians associ- 
ates them together; and Peter, alluding to the conversion 
of the Gentiles, declares that God purified their hearts by 
faith. In the epistles to the Ephesians, Galatians, Colos- 
sians, and Hebrews, stress is laid on the thought that our 
union with Christ, which is effected by laith, should be and 
must be productive of good works. They flow from it nec- 
essarily, as wreathed forms of beauty rise from the sea, as 
broad gleams of light stream down from the sun, and as 
flowers and harvests spring from the fertile earth. To 
understand the matter more fully we must remember that 
the Bible assumes the need in humanity of a new principle 
of moral life. Christ says that He came to seek and to save 
the lost. That we are in some sense lost has been more 
than suspected, even by those who have sought guidance 
from the light of nature only; for they have been sadly con- 
scious of imperfection in their lives. "Were we to succeed 
in destroying the Bible, we would still fail to erase from 
human consciousness the conviction that sin reigns unto 
death. 

Sin is here, not because the Bible teaches it, bat because 
we transgress the divine law. But how shall we be deliv- 
ered from this thralldom? How shall we so influence our 
heart that henceforward our bent, drift, and tendency shall 
be toward righteousness? To this no answer is given by 
last Sabbath's lecture. That has no redemption to preach 



BY DR. L0R1MER. 



51 



from a dreary past, no encouragement to extend of a nobler 
future. That simply assures us that if we are in the wrong 
we must continue in it, and sink in it deeper and deeper. 
But this is not the message of the gospel. That teaches 
the possibility of implanting in the heart a new principle, 
which will regenerate both character and life. The prin- 
ciple which it thus highly exalts is faith — not faith in a 
creed, in a form of words, but in a person, and that person 
Christ. Have you never observed the elevating and puri- 
fying power of this grace in other relations? "When a 
young man who has been reckless unites himself with a 
pure, devoted woman in marriage, if he has confidence in 
her, how decisively her character will act on his. His affi- 
ance with her creates a purer air around him, and imprints 
upon his heart both the reality and loveliness of a virtuous 
life. Or, to change the illustration, let it be the confiding 
love of a child in a mother, or of a son in a father, or of 
one friend in another, and in proportion as the object of 
trust is morally exalted will it have power to transform 
into its own likeness. Pre-eminently must this be true of 
Christ. Consider His greatness, His moral splendor and 
spiritual magnificence. He represents Himself not only as 
the teacher of the world, but as its sacrifice for sin. As such 
He magnifies in our eyes the dignity of the moral law and 
of personal purity. He does not leave the impression that 
if* we wrong any one it can be passed unnoticed by the Su- 
preme Kuler. The wrong must not only be atoned for by 
his priestly offering, but we must right it ourselves as far as 
possible, and whatever remains of compensation God will 
not withhold from the sufferer. 

Saved, Not for Faith's Sake, Nor Work's Sake, But for Christ's Sake. 

It is a misrepresentation to imply that if we injure a 
fellow being, we can obtain forgiveness without being 



52 REPLY TO INGERSOLVS NEW LECTURE, 



deeply sensible of our guilt, and without sincere effort* to 
counteract the evils we have wrought. Christ taught no 
such doctrine, neither do we. Christ taught the abomin- 
ableness of iniquity, the blasphemy of wrong doing; and 
on the other side, the essential and eternal beauty of right- 
eousness. And if we trust Him, that is, if we receive Him as 
our prophet, priest, and king, we say amen, to all that He 
is and to all that He proclaims; we accept Him as the pat- 
tern of our life and as its inspiration. How can there be 
such trust without morality? and how can there be morality 
springing from such a source without peace of mind, and 
hope of everlasting salvation? Faith saves, not because 
there is in it intrinsic worth greater than resides in right- 
eousness, but because it is itself the source of righteous- 
ness, bringing us into fellowship with One whose presence 
must ever tend to chase away the shadow of sin. We are 
saved, not for faith's sake, nor for our works' sake, but for 
Christ's sake; by whom we are influenced, through the in- 
strumentality of faith, to preserve ourselves blameless in 
thought and deed unto the end. 

This is the gospel that I preach to you. That its truth 
has been confirmed by its influence on society, such impar- 
tial writers as Lecky, who, as you know, is not favorably 
disposed to Christianity, concedes; and there are few who 
would venture the assertion made last Sabbath, " that na 
tions in proportion as they have been religious, have gone 
back to barbarism." The examples adduced to maintain 
this allegation, Spain, Portugal, and Italy, have been 
afflicted with a system that can hardly claim very close 
affinity with primitive Christianity. But nothing was said 
of England, Germany, and America, and all the philanthro- 
pic triumphs of Christianity in these countries were con- 
veniently passed unnoticed. The selection of France to 
prove the beneficial influence of infidelity was far from 



BY DR. LO RIMER. 



fortunate; for to-day, with all of its material prosperity, 
there is more of unrest, and, perhaps, more of unhappiness 
than elsewhere. The republic is, at best, a tyranny, and its 
moral corruption threatens to engulf it. Others have read 
history as well as Col. Ingersoll, and others see, what he 
can not, that, wherever the gospel has been preached, and 
preached most freely, the intellectual and moral life of the 
people have advanced. There true freedom has taken root, 
there education has nourished, and there the home has 
developed in sanctity and beauty. France has no home 
life; France has but a dim apprehension of any other evangel 
than violence; and if France is ever rescued from the power 
of her bloody traditions, it will only be through that gospel 
which is again being proclaimed in her white fields. 

Infidelity Unmasked. 

But, however we may read the past, one thing is clear 
from the lecture whose leading thoughts we have considered, 
humanity is left hopeless and helpless by infidelity. If we 
are in sorrow it has no comfort, if we are in sin it has no 
deliverance, if we are in perplexity it has no message, if we 
are in darkness it has no light. The virtue it preaches is 
without foundation, the heroism it inculcates is without 
inducement, and the immortality it whispers is without 
evidence. Its loftiest sentiments are borrowed from the 
religion it affects to despise; the liberty which it claims to 
champion, it has sacrificed but little to secure; and the 
sweet charities it commends, it has done nothing to estab- 
lish. The garland eloquence wherewith it clothes itself, is 
the adornment of a corpse, every flower sheaths a worm in 
its bosom, and every breath of fragrance is mingled with 
death. Its oratory smells of the tomb, and the symbol of 
its hope is an eyeless, tongueless skull, grinning in mocking 
insolence at everything that dignifies and ennobles life. It 



54 



BE PLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



brings no benefaction, it pronounces no benediction, but 
casts its baneful shadow on all that is fair and sacred. From 
its cold lips there comes no grand and rounded full "Yea 1 ' 
to match its piercing, blighting and destroying "Nay." It 
is simply a huge negation, seeking with one hand to stop 
the mouth of religion, and with the other to write on hu- 
man aspirations and beliefs a bitter and derisive " No." It 
has no gospel of salvation even for this world, but only an 
evangel of destruction. 

Let us then turn from it, and proclaim Him in whom is 
life, and who came " that we might have life, and have it 
more abundantly." Let us, in realizing the insufficiency of 
all other answers, repeat to those who ask, " What must we 
do to be saved?" " Believe on. the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
thou shalt be saved," saved from sin, saved from despair, 
saved from uselessness and misery, and saved forever more 
in the kingdom of His, glory, 



BBPLT OF PEOF. CTJBTIS. 



A Little Story— Ingersoll " Innocent of Greek, » and the Consequences. 

The story is told of a certain scholar who made a great 
flourish of a so-called rare discovery, but was brought to 
confusion by a critic, who said, after exposing him, that he 
was reminded of a caution often uttered by his grand- 
mother: " Children should not play with sharp-edged tools 
or they will cut their fingers." Now, when Col. Ingersoll, 
who appears to be innocent of Greek, dabbles in New Tes- 
tament criticism he is constantly cutting his fingers, al- 
though he does not seem to be aware of it. 

One may well be ashamed to attempt any reply to such a 
lecture as the one entitled: " What Shall We Do to Be 
Saved?" — a lecture which is full of disgraceful blunders; 
and yet, if Mr. Ingersoll should become the apostle of Com- 
munism, our best statesmen would probably think it wise 
to combat principles which, uttered with adroitness, would 
be very popular, although evidently fallacious to every stu- 
dent of political economy. The editor of the Tribune, 
therefore, has done well to summon the clergy to answer 
Col. Ingersoll's statements concerning Matthew. 

The assertion that the New " Testament was not written 
for hundreds of years after the Apostles were dust" is so 
wild as to need no refutation, and would be laughed to 

55 



56 



REPLY TO INGEESOLL'S NEW LECTUEE, 



scorn by the most radical critics in Germany. Intelligent 
skeptics would never think of making such a claim. 

The statement that " in the original manuscripts * * 
the epistles are addressed to nobody," might seem a little 
more plausible to one unacquainted with the facts. But 
all of Paul's epistles are addressed to some specific church 
or person. A man who cares for the truth would be likely 
to hide his head for shame after making such an entirely 
false affirmation. 

Ingersoll's Interpolations, " Wont Do." 

Col. Ingersoll's assertions about interpolations in the 
original text of the JSTe.w Testament are unreliable with one 
exception. It is true that many scholars are inclined to 
reject Mark, xvi., 9-20, as not from the same author as that 
which precedes. Still, critics who are not considered ortho- 
dox, such as Schleiermacher, De Wette, Schwarz, Strauss, 
and Hilgenfeld, defend its authenticity. Even those who 
affirm that these verses were not written by Mark, claim 
for them a very early origin, since they are found in the 
Syriac version, and are quoted by Irenseus (d. 202). It is 
of course very convenient for the opponents of future pun- 
ishment to assume that all the passages regarding retribu- 
tion in another world are interpolations, but the doctrine 
rests upon a large number of passages which are found in 
all the oldest manuscripts. I need not say that Col. Inger- 
soll makes an assertion without the slightest foundation 
in fact when he claims that Christ's answer to the young 
man who asked, What lack I yet? "Go sell that thou hast 
and give to the poor," is an " interpolation effected through 
the Church's greed of gain." These are a few specimens of 
the false statements in which the lecture abounds. Is Mr. 
Ingersoli as ignorant as he seems, or is he dishonest and 
reckless ? 

Awaiting further developments, I prefer to call him 



BY PROF. CURTIS. 



5? 



ignorant. He is like the blind leading the blind of whom 
Christ speaks. Turning now to Mr. Ingersoll's resume of 
Matthew's teaching, we find that the orator's half truths 
are as misleading as falsehoods. He tells his audience that 
he has read them every word in Matthew on the subject of 
salvation, and " there is not one word about believing any- 
thing. * * * If it was necessary to believe anything to 
go to Heaven, Matthew should have told us." This is a 
very superficial statement. We have no evidence that 
Christ clearly preached salvation through Himself until 
after His resurrection, and then He seems to have spoken 
to His disciples. Such preaching would have been entirely 
premature, as neither they nor the people would have been 
prepared to understand it, for even the twelve Apostles 
were looking for a temporal deliverance of the Jewish 
nation through Him. 

There can, however, be no difficulty in finding the doc- 
trine of salvation through faith in Christ in Matthew. 
He clearly teaches that there are two grand classes of men. 
In the Sermon on the Mount Christ says: " No man can 
serve two Piasters; for either he will hate the one and love 
the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the 
other. Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." Again 
Christ strikes a heavy blow at indifferentism when he 
affirms: "He that is not with Me is against Me; and he 
that gathereth not with Me scattereth." 

He repeatedly asserts that there will be a separation be- 
tween the righteous and the wicked. This he sets forth most 
impressively in several parables which He Himself explains. 
In the parable of the tares He says that " the good seed are 
the children of the Kingdom, but the tares are the children 
of the wicked one. * * * As therefore the tares are 
gathered and burned in the fire, so shall it be in the end of 
this world. The Son of Man shall send forth His angels,, 



58 



REPLY TO INtfERS OLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



and they shall gather out of His Kingdom all things that 
offend, and them which do iniquity, and shall cast them 
into a furnace of fire." "We have the same separation be- 
tween two classes of men in the parables of the net, the 
foolish virgins, etc., and in that solemn description of the 
time when all nations shall be gathered before the Son of 
Man, " and He shall separate them one from another as the 
shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats." 

But Col. Ingersoll affirms that this very passage along 
with many others shows, according to Matthew, that men 
will be saved by good works without faith. It is evident, 
however, when we examine Christ's ideal of a righteousness 
which saves, that is utterly unattainable. He entirely rules 
out the righteousness of the largest and most respectable 
body of the Jewish nation, and says : " Except your right- 
eousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and 
Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the Kingdom of 
Heaven." Now, whether this refers to a degree or kind of 
righteousness, such a test excludes a large proportion of the 
human race from Heaven who would fall far below these 
Jewish moralists. 

Love and Obedience. 

It is clear from Christ's Sermon on the Mount that no 
merely untoward obedience to the law is sufficient. He 
says: "Whosoever shall look on a woman to lust after her 
bath committed adultery already with her in his heart.'' 
He condemns the Pharisees because they " outwardly ap- 
pear to be righteous," while they are "full of iniquity." 
His conception of obedience to the law is not of an outward 
conformity to the ten commandments, for when a certain 
lawyer asked which is the greatest commandment in the 
law he replied: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with 
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 
This is the first and great commandment; and the second is 



BY PROF, CURTIS. 



59 



like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On 
these two commandments hang all the law and the proph- 
ets." But what man has ever kept these commandments? 
And if not, how then can we be saved? 

Indeed this is a question that the disciples put to Christ, 
according to Matthew, in view of the impossibility of ful- 
filling His requirements: "Who then can be saved? 
Christ answers : " With men this is impossible ; but with 
God all things are possible," i. e., according to Meyer, 
Christ refers the disciples from human helplessness in ob- 
taining salvation to the Almighty power of converting and 
saving grace. That human righteousness is not sufficient^ 
for salvation is clearly set forth in the parable of the man 
who had not on a wedding garment. 

Matthew plainly teaches the necessity of conversion. He 
represents Christ as saying in so many words : " Except ye 
be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not 
enter into the Kingdom of Heaven," and as exhorting His 
hearers: "Enter ye at the straight gate; for wide is the 
gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and 
many there be which go in thereat." 

It naturally follows that Matthew should teach that Jesus 
is the Savior of sinners. Hence we read in the communi- 
cation which the angel made to Joseph, that he was to " call 
His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their 
sins." This is remarkable in view of the fact that the J ews 
were looking for a temporal deliverer in the Messiah, and that 
the Gospel according to Matthew seems to have been more 
especially designed for the Jews. Moreover, we find Christ 
forgiving sins. It is related that one sick of the palsy was 
brought to Christ, and that He, seeing their faith, said to 
the sick of the palsy: "Son, be of good cheer; thy sins 
are forgiven thee." The scribes of course thought Him 
guilty of blasphemy. Jesus then, reading their thoughts, 



REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



that they might know that the Son of Man had power on earth 
to forgive sins, commanded the sick of the palsy: "Arise, 
take up thy bed, and go unto thy house." 

In the institution of the Last Supper the ground of for- 
giveness is clearly stated as being in the blood of Christ. 
He Himself said as He took the cup, gave it to His dis- 
ciples, and commanded them to drink of it: " This is My 
blood ot the New Testament, which is shed for many for 
the remission of sins." Cremer remarks that this is " the 
forgivness of sins on the part of God, with reference to the 
future judgment." The New Testament, or New Cove- 
nant, is here mentioned. We know what the Old Cove- 
nant was. It is described in the sixth chapter of Exodus. 
Peace-offerings were offered. Moses took the book of the 
Covenant and read it before the people. They promised to 
keep it. Moses sprinkled the blood of the peace-offerings 
upon them. The author of the Hebrews alludes to those 
two Covenants when he says: "For if the blood of bulls 
and goats, and the ashes of an heifer sanctifieth to the 
purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of 
Christ, who, through the eternal spirit, offered Himself 
without spot, purge your conscience from dead works to 
serve the living God." 

Faith in Christ the Great Basis of Salvation. 

It is an interesting fact that Matthew, in his account of 
most of the cures wrought by Christ, represents Him as 
making faith the condition of His mighty works and of 
His healing power. We read that in His own country He 
did not many mighty works because of their unbelief. To 
the Canaanitish woman He says: " O woman, great is thy 
faith; be it unto thee even as thou wilt." To the woman 
with the issue of blood He said, "Daughter, be of good 
comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole." [Literally, 



BY PROF. CURTIS. 



31 



hath saved thee.] To the blind men He said, " 4 Believe ye 
that I am able to do this?' They said unto Him, < Yea, 
Lord.' Then touched He their eyes, saying, < According to 
your faith be it unto you.'" Are we to suppose that Christ 
would make faith a condition of the salvation of the body 
and not make it a condition of the salvation of the soul? 
especially when we find Him regarding the forgiveness o^ 
sins as of the first importance with the sick of the palsy' 
and granting him healing because of the faith of those who 
brought him to Jesus? Any other conclusion is unreason- 
able. Indeed, we find Christ pronouncing a fearful doom 
on Charazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum because they 
repented not on seeing His mighty works; that is, they 
did not believe in Him, and so did not repent. But we 
have a more explicit declaration by Matthew when he says 
of Jesus : " In His name shall the Gentiles trust " [liter- 
acy hope]. But they could not do this without faith. 

If Matthew has in mind the name which he uses hun- 
dreds of times, and far more than any othe^ then the name in 
which the Gentiles are to hope is Jesus, by which He was 
called because he should save His people from their sins- 
But the most explicit passage is where Matthew quotes 
Christ as saying: "Whoever, therefore, shall confess Me 
before men, him will I also confess before My Father which is 
in Heaven. But whosoever shall deny Me before men, him 
will I also deny before My Father in Heaven." Cremer in 
his Biblico-Theological Lexicon says : " The confessing of 
Christ is the outward expression of personal faith in Him. 
This is contrasted with [the word translated deny] arneis- 
thai, — to withhold, refuse, or withdraw such a confession. 

In closing this article I do not deny that Matthew lays 
special emphasis upon good works. They are not inconsis- 
tent with salvation by faith. No faith can be genuine which 
does not manifest itself by them. But Matthew nowhere 



62 REPL Y TO INGERS OLL'S NE W LECTURE. 



claims that men are saved by works alone. The works 
mentioned in the twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew are 
simply the fruits of a saving faith. To be sure, we do not 
find any approach to a discussion of the doctrine. That is 
reserved for the Epistle to the Komans, but even in Mat- 
thew there are abundant indications that " by the deeds of 
the law there shall no flesh be justified," and that " Christ is 
at the end of law for righteousness to every one that be- 
lieveth." 



Prefatory Statement. 

Two weeks ago the boardings of this city were placarded 
with bills announcing that one who was well known would 
give what he considered to be the true answer to this ques- 
tion. "What he considered the true answer was delivered 
in one of the large theatres last Sunday afternoon, and pub- 
lished in the leading newspapers of this city, and sown 
broadcast over the Northwest. I was told by a great many 
people that it was desirable to let the whole thing alone, 
but on talking with several I found that there were not 
unlikely many people who were taken up with the lecture 
as it was delivered, and inclined to adopt the sentiments 
that were expressed. I then thought that the best thing 
that could be done would be to rent that same theatre and 
take up the challenge that had been apparently thrown 
down, and answer the question in an entirely different way, 
and show, step by step, where the lecturer was wrong in the 
estimation of his answerer. I found objections in the way 
of doing that myself, or of getting others to do it, though 
I tried ; and then I determined that I should speak upon 
the subject, not by way of answer to that lecture, in my 
own pulpit this morning. 

But in the meantime some kind friend, I suppose, put 
some communication into the public press to the effect that 

63 



64 



REPLY TO INGERSOLUS NEVt LECTURE, 



I was going to answer Col. Ingersoll this morning, which 
was not my intention. No doubt that announcement has 
brought a good many people here to-day, and, therefore, I 
have thought it advisable to preface what I have to say 
upon this subject, with a reply to some of the statements 
that were made last Sunday afternoon, and I think that the 
points that I shall indicate will sufficiently exhaust what 
was said then, because I think that what I shall say will go 
to the root of the subject. And yet I do not believe it shall 
be an answer, seriatim, to the statements that were made 
last Sunday afternoon, because I do not think that that is 
a necessary thing in this congregation. 1 believe there are 
many people in the congregation to which I have the privi- 
lege to minister, who would not, from the reputation of the 
lecturer of last Sunday afternoon, so much as look at a single 
word that he said; and I do not wish to put into the minds 
of such people the things that he said on that occasion. 
And I think that, yet, on the other hand, there are people, 
very possibly in this congregation, who may suppose that 
those arguments are satisfactory, and I want to show that 
they were not arguments at all, and therefore, that they 
were the reverse of satisfactory. 

I thought it necessary to preface what I have to say this 
morning with these few remarks, in order that you may 
understand distinctly the position that I take to-day. This 
is not a position I have chosen. It is a position which the 
force of circumstances has, in a measure, forced upon me, 
for I felt that I should be untrue to myself, untrue to you, 
and untrue to the cause of God which I believe has been 
by that lecture assailed, if I did not take up the matter now, 
or passed it over in silence. 

Ingersoll's Alledged Interpolations. 

Now, one of the things he said last Sunday afternoon 
was this: "The epistles are addressed to nobody, and they 



BY DR. COURTNEY. 



65 



are signed by the same person, and all the addresses, and 
all the pretended ear-marks showing to whom they are 
written, and by whom they were written, are simply inter- 
polations, and whoever has studied the subject knows it." 

Now, this is what I say in reply. All the Pauline epis- 
tles are addressed to particular churches and individuals, 
the only doubtful one being that addressed to the Ephesians, 
and many critics conclude that the disputed words are gen- 
uine. 

The epistle to the Hebrews has always been recognized 
as anonymous. The epistle of St. James, the first and sec- 
ond epistles of St. Peter, and the epistle of St. Jude, claim 
in the opening to be written by those whose names they 
bear. So much for the epistles not being addressed to any- 
body. It is a question of fact. It is a question of interpre- 
tation. 

And now about the conclusions of the epistles. The 16th 
chapter of the first epistle to the Corinthians and 21st verse 
reads: " The salutation of me, Paul, with mine own hand.'' 

The 6th chapter of the epistle to the Galatians and the 
11th verse, reads: "Yet see how large a letter" — or, liter- 
ally, as every critic knows, " In what sprawling characters 
I have written unto you, with mine own hand." 

The 4th chapter of the epistle to the Colossians and the 
18th verse, reads thus: "The salutation is by the hand of 
me, Paul." 

The 3d chapter of the second epistle to the Thessalonians 
and the 67th verse, reads thus: " The salutation ot Paul, 
with mine own hand." 

So much for the assertion that the epistles are signed by 
nobody. It is a question of fact, not a question of interpre- 
tation. 

When you come to look at the structure of the epistles 
you find this : That it was not the custom of that day — and 

5 



66 



REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



you may find that, not in these epistles only, but in other 
epistles that are extant at the present day, that were writ- 
ten at that time — you will find it was not the custom of 
that day to begin and end a letter as we do. They put their 
name in the fore part, and usually conclude with a greeting 
and a benediction. And that, you find, is the case ordina- 
rily with these epistles. 

Clear, Pointed, and Pungent Answers to a Number of Ingersoll's Assertions. 

Here is another thing the lecturer says: " It has always 
seemed to me that a being coming from another world, 
with a message of infinite importance to mankind, should 
at least have verified that message by his own signature." 

Well that is not criticism. That is personal conjecture. 
No one of those called orthodox claims that Christ wrote or 
signed any statement of doctrine; and what seemed to be 
the object or the right course to pursue is nothing to the 
point. The question is a question of fact — keep to it — not 
of conjecture. 

Here is another thing that the lecturer says: " This Tes- 
tament was not written for hundreds of years after the 
Apostles were dust." My answer is this: This is an un- 
supported assertion by the lecturer; its value can be esti- 
mated when it is remembered — and mind what I say — and 
mind, what I say is only to be taken as a matter of fact 
that is verifiable, and if it is not verifiable that it is then to 
be asserted as a falsehood — its value can be estimated when 
it is remembered that the acutest and most careful investi- 
gation of those who have given a life-time to the study of this 
subject, and are, therefore, most qualified to speak and decide, 
that the manuscripts in existence at the present day are the 
transcripts of the original gospels, written by them whose 
names they bear — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; and 
that the most masterly attack upon the genuineness of 



BY DR. COURTNEY 



6T 



John's gospel, even in the present day, has been success- 
fully repelled. It is a question of fact, not a question of 
interpretation. 

Here is another statement of the lecturer: "It is among 
the easiest things in the world to pick out at least one hun- 
dred interpolations in the New Testament, and I will pick 
out some of them before I get through." 

My answer is this: That there have been and are some 
interpolations, no one has ever hesitated to acknowledge ; ' 
though that almost all of them are of the smallest possible 
importance, anyone at all acquainted with the subject must 
at once confess. The principle upon which the lecturer 
picks out interpolations is, first, to make up his mind as 
to what he will receive, and what he is content to acknowl- 
edge that is true, and then to decide that everything that 
he does not like, and doesn't think consistent with his pre- 
viously conceived standard, is an interpolation. You will 
find that distinctly stated in the lecture. As far as I can 
remember the words, and I am sure I remember the sense, 
goes this way: That where he quotes certain of the beati- 
tudes from the Sermon on the Mount he says: "Good; I 
accept that because I like it." 

But that is not criticism. You would not criticise any 
doctrine in that way. The lecturer himself would not him- 
self sift evidence in a court in that way, and I admit he is 
capable of doing it. If he were a judge upon the bench, 
and anyone should dare to try to sift evidence in that way, 
he would direct the jury to consider that the counsel was 
trying to abuse his prerogative. I appeal to the lawyers in 
this assemblage; I appeal to the common sense of human- 
ity, in biblical or any other kind of criticism. 

The lecturer brings forward an account of the rich young 
man who had kept all the commandments, and he repeated 



68 



REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



Christ's words to him. He said: " Reciting the command- 
ments of the second table — 

" Honor thy father and thy mother. 

" Thou shalt not commit adultery. 

"Thou shalt not kill. 

" Thou shalt not covet. 

"Thou shalt not bear false witness." 

And then the young man said — and said the lecturer last 
Sunday afternoon: "I don't believe him; ' all these I 
have kept from my youth up,' ' What lack I yet?' " That 
is an interpolation. 

But the thing that he objected to is this, that Christ 
should have been reported to say in reply to the question 
"What lack I yet?" "If thou w T ouldst be perfect, go and 
sell all that thou hast and give to the poor, and thou shalt 
have treasure in heaven; and go and take up the cross and 
follow Me." And he says it is absurd to suppose anything 
of the kind; and yet is it not a fact that the principle that 
is conveyed in that advice of our blessed Lord is identically 
the same that it is absolutely necessary for anybody to fol- 
low in any pursuit whatever, if he would attain his 
object, that pursuit being inconsistent with the love of 
riches? Isn't that so? And if the young man went away 
sorrowful, as the gospel says, because he had great posses- 
sions, does it not show exactly that our Lord looked right 
to the root of the question, and applied to him just the 
test which should show him how utterly wrong he was in 
the conclusion to which he had come with regard to the 
observance of the commandments of the second table, and 
which wrongness of conclusion even the lecturer last Sun- 
day afternoon is willing to admit, and asserts on behalf of 
that young man. 

And then there is another thing closely connected with 
that, because it follows close after it in the gospels, and 



BY BR. COURTNEY. 



69 



which the lecturer points out as showing the untrust- 
worthiness of the gospels. It is the advice the blessed 
Lord gives to " forsake father, and mother, and house, and 
lands and all the rest for the sake of Me and of My gospel." 

Now, then, there are crises, as every student of history 
knows, that occur in the world's history, and there are 
crises which occur, as every student of history knows, in a 
nation's history. It is not so long ago that there was the 
crisis in this nation's history. Twenty years ago from this 
very time the nation was just on the very brink of its crisis, 
and twenty years ago next year it was in the vortex of 
that crisis. 

Now, then, what would the lecturer, what would anyone 
have said, in that day, if a man had loved father, or mother, 
or brother, or friend, or house, or lands, or money, more 
than his country's honor, and more than his country's wel- 
fare ? I was told, only yesterday, that he himself eulogized, 
at the conclusion of the war, those who had forsaken father 
and mother, and house and lands, and home, and gone to 
maintain their country against those whom they regarded 
as rebels ; and that time, when the Lord was here, was the 
crisis in the world's history, and it was necessary that those 
who were heralds of the cross should put the cause of God 
first, above everything, every consideration of father, or 
mother, or house, or lands, or neighbor, or friend, or any- 
thing whatsoever, besides what would carry that cause to 
the consummation to which it is destined, in the time 
which is to come. It has not reached it yet. We want 
something of the enthusiasm, we want something of the 
utter regardlessness of everything else which animated the 
first preachers of the cross. 

After quoting from the Sermon on the Mount and the 
12th chapter of St. Matthew, also the 18th chapter, 3d and 
4th verses, and about the rich young man to which I have 



70 REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NE W LECTURE, 



just referred, he says: "This is all there is in Matthew 
on the subject of salvation; not one word about belief, etc. 
It is the gospel of deeds, the gospel of charity, the gospel 
of self-denial." Of course it is; that is exactly what 
Christianity is; but what is the basis of the deed, the char- 
ity, and the self-denial? I assert that it is faith, belief in 
Jesus of Nazareth, the historical personage; that Jesus of 
Nazareth is the Son of God, the revealer of the Father, the 
rightful king of mankind, and the Savior of man. And if 
any of you are disturbed on the subject of what is called 
biblical criticism, and are floundering about in a sea of 
doubt, let me here remind you of what is not an original 
remark by me, but was enunciated by Prebendary lloe, in 
1837, that " the essence of the Christian religion is the 
historic life of Jesus of Nazareth." Don't forget it. Keep 
it in your minds as a sentence until you have thought it- 
over and digested it. " The essence of the Christian relig- 
ion is the historic life of Jesus of Nazareth;" and the sig- 
nificance of those facts — the facts of His historic life — is 
such as to lead men to believe that He is their head and He 
is their Savior. That is the essence of the Christian 
religion. 

And now let me detain you while I read to you some- 
thing from the eloquent Father Lacordaire in his " Confer- 
ence sur Jesus Christ." 

How Shall We Account for the Kingdom of Christ] 

" The principal question, because it contains all, the past, 
the present, and the future, is this: The world having 
lived in idolatry in the times before Augustus, how has it 
become Christian since his time? These are the two sides 
that divide all history — the side of antiquity, and the side 
of later ages; the one idolator, plunged into the most liceu- 
tious materialism; the other Christian, purified at the 
sources of a complete spirituality. In the ancient world 



BY BR. COURTNEY. 



71 



the flesh publicly prevailed over the spirit; in the present, 
the spirit publicly prevails over the flesh. What has 
caused this? Who has produced a change so great and so 
general in extent between the two periods of mankind? 
Who has so greatly modified the human form and the 
course of history? Your fathers adored idols; you, their 
posterity, descended from them by a corrupted blood ; you 
adore Jesus Christ. Your fathers were materialists even 
in their worship ; you are spiritualists even in your pas- 
sions. Your fathers deny all that you believe; you deny 
all that they believe. Again I ask, what is the reason of 
this? There are no events without causes in history, any 
more than there is movement without motive power in 
mathematics. What is this historical cause which con- 
verted the idolatrous world into the Christian world, which 
gave Charlemagne as a successor to Nero ? You are com- 
pelled to know or at least to seek it. 

"We Catholics say that this prodigious change corres- 
ponds to the appearance upon earth of a man who called 
himself the Son of God, sent to take away the sins of the 
world — who preached humility, purity, penance, gentle- 
ness, peace; who lived piously among the poor and lowly; 
who died on a cross, with arms extended over us to bless 
us; who left His teachings and His example in the gospel; 
and who, having touched the souls of many, subdued their 
pride, and corrected their senses, has left in them a tran- 
quil joy so marvelous that its perfume has spread to the 
end of the world, and has won even sensuality. 

" We say this. Yes, a man, a single man, has founded 
the empire of Christians upon the ruins of this idolatrous 
empire; and we do not marvel thereat, because we have re- 
marked in history that all good as well as evil invariably 
springs from a single principle, from a man the depository 
of the hidden force of the demon, or the invisible force of 
God. 



72 REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



Christ the Summit of History. 

« "We say this, and we base our declaration upon uninter- 
rupted monuments which begin with Moses and reach to 
us; We appeal also to a publicity of thirty-two consecutive 
centuries; we join together the Jewish people, Jesus Christ, 
the Catholic Church, or, rather, we do not join these, they 
appear before us closely linked together in a course of 
things sustained the one by the other; we appeal, in fine, to 
the whole web of history, and in the name of that immense 
monument which is absolutely necessary to admit and to 
explain, we say to you, Jesus Christ is the supreme expres- 
sion of history; He is its key and its revelation." * * * 
<-And if a gleam of good faith remains in the depths of 
your soul, will you not be compelled to say with us: Yes, 
it is Christ on Calvary, in that blood which was shed that 
the renovation of the human soul began? Therefore, gen- 
tlemen, before our epoch none dared to deny the historical 
reality of J esus Christ, not one. Before you, long before 
you, Jesus Christ had enemies; for before you pride existed, 
and pride is the chief enemy of Jesus Christ. 

Before you Jesus Christ had enemies, for before you 
sensuality existed, and sensuality is the second enemy of 
Jesus Christ. Before you Jesus Christ had enemies, but 
before you egotism existed, and egotism is the third enemy 
of Jesus Christ. And yet when He appeared for the first 
time, when He came with His cross to sap your pride, to 
insult your senses, to drag down your egotism to the very 
dust, what was said of Him? Pride, sensuality, egotism 
have now, as then, able men in their service — Celsus, 
Pophyry, all the Alexandrian school, and the lovers of this 
life, and the throng of courtiers, ever ready to find in truth 
a secret enemy in power — what said they of Christ? 

They pursued Him by putting His followers to death; 
by deriding His life; by disputing His dogmas; by oppres- 



BY DR. COURTNEY. 73 

sion called to the help of a cause which betrayed liberty; 
but their books, subsisting in a thousand remains by the 
aid of printing — which I just now called the salvation of 
history — their books confirm Him; not one of them has 
denied the reality of the life of J esus Christ. You alone, 
coming eighteen centuries after, and thinking that time, 
which confirms history in its destroyer — you have dared to 
battle against the very light of the sun, hoping that every 
negation is at least a shadow, and that human folly, seeking 
a refuge against the severity of Jesus Christ, would accept 
of any arms as a defense, or of any shield as a protection. 
You have deceived yourselves. History subsists in spite 
of negation, as the heart of man subsists in spite of the 
debauching of the senses; and Jesus Christ remains under 
the shelter of unexampled publicity, and of a necessity 
to which there is no counterpoise, upon the summit of 
history. 

" Nevertheless, as a last hope you say to me : If it were a 
question of human events only, such as those of which the 
ordinary annals of nations are composed, it is manifest that 
the life of Jesus Christ contained in the gospels would be 
beyond all discussion. But in that life it is a question of 
events which bear no comparison with those we habitually 
witness. It is a question of God, who made Himself man, 
who died and rose again. How is it possible for us to ad- 
mit such strange things upon a mass of human evidence? 
For, in fine, public writings, public events, the public and 
general web of history, all this assemblage of proofs is 
purely human; and it is upon this mortal foundation that 
you base a history where all is superhuman. The base 
must evidently sink under such a weight. 

" Gentlemen, I do not undervalue the force of that objec- 
tion. Yes; I understand that when it is a question of the 
history of God it needs another pen than that which traces- 



U REPLY TO IJVGERSOLL'S NE W LECTURE, 



the history of the greatest man in the world. This is true. 
But I also believe that God has solved this objection by- 
creating for His only Son, Jesus Christ, a history which is 
not human; that is to say, which, in its proportions, is so 
much above the nothingness of man that the ordinary 
power of history would evidently not have sufficed for i 
Where will you iind such connection as that of the J ewish 
people, Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church? Where is 
there anything to be compared to it? And, moreover, 
without returning to what has already been said, where, 
among all the histories known to you, do you find any 
which for three centuries had witnesses who gave it the 
testimony of their blood? Where are the witnesses who 
have given their lives in favor of the authenticity of the 
greatest men or the greatest events? Who died to certify 
the history o± Alexander? Who died to certify the history 
of Caesar? Who? Not one. ~No one in the world has 
ever shed his blood to add another degree of evidence to the 
historical certainty of anything whatever. Men leave his- 
tory to take its course. But to form it with their blood, to 
cement historical testimony with human blood for three 
centuries, is what has never been witnessed, save on the 
part of Christians for Jesus Christ. We were interrogated 
during three centuries, and asked to declare who we were ; 
we answered: Christians. Then they said to us: Blaspheme 
the name of Christ, and we replied: We are Christians. 
They put us to death for this in frightful tortures; and in 
the hands of our executioners our last sigh exhaled, as a 
balm for the dying and a testimony for the living to all 
eternity, the name of J esus Christ. We did not die for 
opinions, but for realities- — the very name of martyr proves 
it; and Pascal has well said: "I believe in witnesses who 
give the testimony of their blood." And, although there 
may be presumption in attempting to speak better than 



BY DR. COURTNEY. 



75 



Pascal, I shall, however, say something better: I believe in 
the human race dying for its faith." 

There, what do you think of it? Is it not as satisfactory 
as it is eloquent? Is it not as true as it is persuasive? 
Let that testimony stand and feel that you are standing 
upon the rock that, as he says, has been watered by the 
blood of Christian people, and then remembering that the 
essence of the Christian religion is the historic life of Jesus 
Christ, and that that historic life produced, by the signifi- 
cance of its facts, faith in the minds of the people who had 
to do with JesUs Christ, whether then, and so on down to 
the present day, it is better than the book of St. Matthew 
to say what the lecturer says : — that this is all there is in 
Matthew on the subject of salvation — not one word about 
believing anything. 

The Facts of Faith— A Few Words about "Believing " 

Early in St. Matthew's gospel you have the visit of the 
magi. They came saying, " Where is He that was born 
Xing of the J ews ?" 

What was the reason of their coming? They believed 
Him to be the King. They would not have come else. Is 
it not true? It is only a question of fact. It is not a 
question of opinion. Peter, James, John, and Andrew are 
successively called by Him with the words, " Follow me." 
Why do they do it? Why do they leave their nets ? Why 
do they leave their boats ? Why do they leave their father 
and hired servants and follow Him? Why? A fact. Was 
it because they did not believe He was the master? Why? 
No. That would have left them where they were before. 
It was because they did believe that He was the master 
that they followed Him. 

The Sermon on the Mount, to which the lecture refers, 
and from which he quotes, "By whom is it received?" By 
those who believe that the speaker of that sermon was the 



•76 



REPLY TO INGERS OLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



true teacher. If He were the true teacher, are we to treat 
Him as no scholars treated a teacher before; that is, to pick 
and choose, and say, " I take this because I like it, and I 
refuse to take that because I do not like it and do not 
understand it?" 

That is not the way people treat teachers. It is not the 
way in which you encourage your children to treat a teacher 
in the schools. It is not the way in which you treat any 
teacher when you read his book or when you listen to his 
lectures. At the end of that sermon, in the twenty-fourth 
verse of the seventh chapter, he says: "Whosoever heareth 
these sayings of mine" — a distinct evidence of the truth of 
that thing — "and doeth them, I will tell you to whom he 
is like." 

Doeth what? "What he likes? No. Doeth those say- 
ings of mine; doeth them all. And it is the true principle 
that is enunciated in another part of the Scripture, where 
it is said: "Faith cometh by hearing." 

Here comes a leper. " Lord, if thou wilt thou canst make 
me clean." 

What lies back of that declaration except faith in the 
Lord Jesus Christ and His power to cure even leprosy 
which was such a dire disease that when JSTaaman, afflicted 
with that disease, came to the King of Israel with a mes- 
sage from the King of Syria, the King of Israel said: " Am 
I a God to kill and make alive, that this man dost send 
unto me to cure a man of his leprosy? " And yet here was 
this leper. What was the principle that he had in his 
heart except faith in this name, this historic man, Jesus of 
Nazareth, that He could heal? 

Here is a centurion, and he says: "Lord, my servant 
lieth at home sick of the palsy grievously tormented." In 
the tenth verse of the eleventh chapter of Matthew what 
does the Lord say? The Lord says: "I tell you I have 



BY BR. COURTNEY. 



77 



not found so great faith, no not in Israel." And yet there 
is not a word about believing in anything or anybody! 

More Faith. 

Is faith not belief; and in whom did the centurion believe 
if he did not believe in Jesus Christ? He comes to reprove 
His disciples, those who had been trusting Him, and what 
does he say to them: " Oh, ye of little faith! " If they had 
great faith then they had great commendation. Then came 
a number of friends and they bring a man sick of the 
palsy and the first word the Lord says to him is: " Son, be 
of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee." 

And they begin to quarrel and say: " Who is this that 
forgiveth sins ? " and .thereupon He says : " Which is the 
easier to say, ' Thy sins are forgiven thee,' or to say, ' Rise, 
take up thy bed and walk;' but that ye may know that the 
Son of Man hath power on earth." He sayeth to the man 
sick of the palsy, " Arise and take up thy bed and go to thine 
house," etc. And they say, " We never saw it done in that 
fashion." 

What then? Didn't that lead to their having faith in the 
assertions that He had made that He had power on earth to 
forgive sins, and the forgiveness of sins is the first step to- 
ward salvation? And yet there is not a word about faith 
or believing in anybody, or believing in anything in Mat- 
thew except what the lecturer gave last Sunday. He called 
Matthew from being a receiver of customs to be an an evan- 
gelist by the words: "Follow me," and when He went and 
sat down among His friends they quarreled, and they said 
to Him: "Why sitteth thy master with publicans and sin- 
ners?" and He said: "I have come, not to call the right- 
eous but to call sinners to repentance." Can they repent if 
they do not believe in Him who brings the message? That 
is the ground of Matthew's repentance and he followed the 
Lord Jesus Christ. 



78 REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



Here is a ruler who comes and says: " Mj little daughter 
is even now dead. Come and lay Thy hand upon her and 
she shall live." What is the meaning of it? Had he not 
faith? And if he had an implicit faith, in whom, I pray 
you, had he faith and what was the character of that faith? 
Why did he trust Him? Why, because he had faith in His 
power to call back even from the dead. He gives a com- 
mission to His apostles to go and preach. He sends them 
out, these twelve, two and two. What is the ground of that 
commission except that they had faith in Him who gave it 
— believed — and that he had authority to give that com- 
mission. Eead it over and see if there is not faith running 
right through it from beginning to end. 

And here comes John the Baptist with a message. He 
says: "Art thou He that is to come or look we for another?" 
And the Lord answered him back: "Yes;" and He says: 
" Go, and tell each one of the things that ye have seen, and 
say, 4 Blessed is he who hath not stumbled in me.' " 

Well, if a man is not stumbled in the Lord Jesus Christ 
as that poor lecturer was last Sunday afternoon — if a man 
is not stumbled in the Lord Jesus Christ what is the neces- 
sary consequence? Why, that he believes in Him, is it not? 
It is only a question of fact; not a question of interpretation. 

Here again he upbraids the city in which most of His 
mighty works are done. Why? Because they repented 
not. But what was the ground of their not repenting? 
W hy, because they did not believe it. Isn't that so? He 
gives that invitation of the eleventh chapter, " Come unto 
me all ye that are weary and heavy-laden and I will give 
you rest." Who is going to accept it? Those that believe 
in Him who gave it, and nobody else. Isn't it so? I ask 
it, does He not claim belief in Himself as the possessor 
and enunciator of principles of abstract truth, applying 
them to individual cases? For instance, in His treatment 



BY Bit. COURTNEY. 



79 



of the Sabbath day. For instance, again, in the question 
of whether He cast out devils by Beelzebub or by the 
finger of God. Doesn't He put the matter right clearly 
before them, so that they must believe it or refuse to believe 
it in spite of themselves, when He says: " The good tree 
brings forth good fruit and the evil tree brings forth evil 
fruit? " And you can't have one kind of fruit on the other 
kind of tree. That is an impossibility. 

"What is the meaning of all the parables in the 13th 
chapter of St. Matthew if they are not a declaration of the 
principles of the Kingdom of Heaven, for the reception 
of which principles as being true it is absolutely essential 
you shall have faith and believe in Him who thus enun- 
ciates that faith. Is it not so ? Only a question of fact, 
not a question of interpretation. "He did not many 
mighty works there." Why? Because of their unbelief. 
1 am only in St. Matthew, and yet there is not a word 
about belief ! There is not a word about faith or belief in 
anything or anybody, except the things that the lecturer 
quoted, and he never referred to one of these things. 

The young woman of Cana comes to Him, and what does 
He say? " O, woman, great is thy faith. Be it unto thee 
even as thou wilt." It is a fact. Here is about the center 
of the gospel, and here comes something of a crisis. We 
would be content to stake it all upon this one thing : "The 
Lord said to His disciples, His Apostles, when they came 
into the town of Csesarea, ' Who do men say that I, the Son 
of Man, am? 'and they answering said, "Some say that Thou 
art Elias, some Jeremias, and some, one of the prophets," 
and He said unto them : "But who say ye that I am?" 
and Peter, answering said, " Thou art Christ, the Son of the 
living God." Now just take it, and look at it, and think 
of it, and meditate upon it, and come to a conclusion, and 
tell me honestly, does that imply or does it not, whole- 



80 



REPLY TO INGERSOLL'8 NEW LECTURE, 



souled, unreserved, and absolute allegiance of Peter, in his 
whole being, body, soul, and spirit, as a human creature, to 
the Lord Jesus Christ, to Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah 
and Son of the living God. Answer it is a fact. And yet 
there is not a word about believing anything or anybody in 
Matthew. He goes up to what is called the Mount of 
Transfiguration, and there comes a voice, and the voice 
says : " This is My beloved Son in whom I am well 
pleased. Hear ye Him." And not believe? And not trust 
what He says? That voice is to come and to command the 
ascent of those who hear to propositions which they are 
perfectly familiar with; to declarations that they learned 
when they were in a rabbi's school. God Almighty is to 
speak from heaven, and to give his authority to the words 
that His dearly beloved Son, manifest in the flesh, shall 
utter when those words are nothing but what anybody else 
has uttered. Is that reasonable? I trow not. 

The lecturer is very fond of little children. Thank God 
for that ! And he refers to Christ's action toward little 
children, and the words that He speaks, repeating them. 
One of the things he says is this, ''Whosoever shall offend 
one of these little ones which believe in Me" — it is in 
Matthew; it is not in Mark, or Luke, or John. It is 
Matthew, which has nothing about belief in it. It is a fact 
The Lord says, in speaking to them, and in encouraging 
them to pray : " Where two or three are gathered together 
in My name, there am I in the midst ol them." How are 
you going to apprehend that except by faith? He says 
again : " The Son of Man came to give His life as a ransom 
lor many ; but," says the lecturer, " I don't believe in for- 
giveness except on the principle that, if you forgive other 
people, God will forgive you." " If ye have faith, ye should 
be able to do " so and so, says the Lord. His great con- 
demnation of those who refused Him was: " The publicans 



YB DR. COURTNEY. 



81 



and the harlots go into the Kingdom of God before you, for 
they repented; but ye, when ye had seen Him, afterward 
did not repent, that ye did not believe Him." 

And yet there is not a word about faith in Matthew. You 
come down to the evidence of the institution of the supper, 
and the Lord says: "This is My blood of the New Testa- 
ment, which was shed for many for the redemption of sins." 
And I am to wait until the last quarter of the nineteenth 
century, in one of the greatest but the youngest cities of 
the world, to be told that I am to accept the unsupported 
statement of an individual against the assertion in the most 
solemn moment of the life of Him whom I believe to be 
God manifest in the flesh. 

You come to the last verses of the last chapter of St. 
Matthew, and what do they say? "All power is given unto 
Me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all 
nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of 
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe 
all things thatsoever I have commanded you, and, so, I am 
with you always, even unto the end of the world." I 
believe it. 

The Athanasian Creed. 

The lecturer, in his address, refers to the hymn, "mis- 
cumque Vult," commonly called " The Creed of St. Athan- 
asius." It is fortunate for him that he did not quote the 
Apostles' or Nicene Creeds, as they are almost wholly a 
recitation of facts. You remember that : " I believe in 
God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and 
in Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, our Lord, who was 
conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Yirgin Mary, 
suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and 
buried, descended into hell, and on the third day rose again, 
and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of 
God the Father, and from thence shall come again to judge 



82 



REPLY TO INQERSOLrS NEW LECTURE, 



both the quick and the dead." It is all facts. It is simply 
a recitation of facts; and facts are stubborn things. The 
difference between the so-called Athanasian creed and those 
two others is that, while they are simply a compilation of 
facts, it is a compilation of deductions from those facts, 
expressing the Christian doctrine in the language of scien- 
tific definition. 

Now you remember that, and then think of the way in 
which the lecturer treats it. To understand any science — 
this is not what he says, but what I am saying, — to under- 
stand any science it is necessary to have studied it. The 
definition respecting it will appear important to those who 
are learned, unimportant to those who are shallow, and 
gibberish to the ignorant, and yet this is the way in 
which the lecturer treats this creed. I will only give you 
one sample. I dare not give you more. I should consider 
it blasphemy to go through it from beginning to end. He 
quotes the early part of it, " We worship one God in trin- 
ity, and trinity in unity, dividing the substance," and then 
he says: " Of course you understand how that's done, and 
you see what a predicament that would leave the Deity in 
if you divided the substance." 

Now take physical science, and of it the one department 
of gravitation, and suppose that I, before a popular audi- 
ence like that gathered last Sunday afternoon, which had 
received no technical instruction, in order to show that the 
law of gravitation is an absurdity, should quote the propo- 
sition, " Any two masses in the universe attract each other 
with a force which varies according to thee squarnvere si of 
the distance," and say: "Of course you understand how 
that's done." You see how awkward it would be for the 
law of gravitation if you were to treat it by no other 
method than that. Would I be dealing fairly with it? 
Should I not betray one of two things — either my own 



BY DR. COURTNEY. 



S3 



animus or my ignorance? It is only a question, not a 
question of interpretation. Keep it down to that and 
remember in all that I say I say exactly what the lecturer 
said last Sunday afternoon. He said that he had no quarrel 
with Methodists or Presbyterians or Baptists. I suppose 
he would also have said Episcopalians; but he quarreled 
with Methodism and the' principle of the Baptists, and 
Presbyterianism, and Episcopalianism, and all those things. 
I have no quarrel with the lecturer himself whatever, but I 
do quarrel with his principles, and I believe in my soul 
that they are false from beginning to end, and, if he will 
pardon me for saying so, shallow. I think they are tricky. 
I think the way in which the subject of the Athanasian 
Creed last Sunday afternoon was treated is worthy of the 
severest and calmest reprobation. And I will give you the 
reason why I thiak so: And this is the man to whom we are 
all to listen, whom we are to believe, rather than the wise 
and good of all the ages, and rather than He of whom the 
Church has ever, all along, been bearing us testimony. 
John Stuart Mill at Variance With Ingersoll on the Human Will. 

There is one thing that he said last Sunday afternoon 
that has often been said before, but it is very specious, and 
I want to point out where it is wrong. This is what he 
said: " You cannot believe as you wish. You must believe 
as you must. You hear evidence, for and against, and the 
integrity of the soul stands at the scales and tells which 
side rises and which falls." I say this were all well enough 
if the soul stood in perfect integrity, but many things come 
in to prevent the soul being impartial. If I were to quote 
a sentiment against Col. Ingersoll which was expressed by 
one who was considered orthodox, I suppose he would put 
it on one side on account of the orthodoxy of the person 
who said it; and the more orthodox the individual the 
more resolutely he would refuse to accept it. But I pre- 



REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



sume he will not quarrel with the authority that I shall 
bring forward. Certainly no clearer-headed and no colder 
man has existed in this century than John Stuart Mill. In 
his autobiography, page 169, this is what he says — he is 
speaking of the time when the Benthamite doctrine of 
necessity broke down. He says: "I say that, though our 
character is formed by circumstances, our own desires can 
do much to shape those circumstances, and that what is 
really inspiring and ennobling in the doctrine of free will 
is the conviction that we have real power over the forma- 
tion of our own character; that our will, by influencing 
some of our circumstances, can modify some of our future 
habits or capabilities of willing." 

Now see what he says — ana remember that he was about 
the most exact user of language that this century has pro- 
duced. He says that " Our own desires can do much to 
shape those circumstances, and, therefore, if our desires 
happen to yield to the bias toward evil, which we must con- 
fess, whatever kind of the ology we have adopted, as exist- 
ing in our nature, then that warps all our future judgment, 
and leads us to choose the evil instead of the good. And 
when when we stand at the scales and see one side rise and 
another side fall, we get an obliquity of vision which causes 
us to assert sometimes that evil is good and good is evil; 
put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." That is the 
answer I give to the assertion that " you cannot believe as 
you wish, and you must believe as you must." 

The Gospel of Good Cooking— Does "Bob" Understand It! 

In conclusion of the lecture the lecturer said he would 
preach the " gospel of good fellowship — friends all around, 
the observance of the laws of health," into which he inter- 
jected the remark that " it is a thousand times better to 
know how to cook food than it is to understand any theology 
in the world. I believe the lecturer makes his living by an 



BY DR. COURTNEY. 



85 



intellectual profession. Does lie think that it is a thousand 
times more important that he should know how to cook 
food than it is to understand any system of law in the 
world ? And if he does not think that, then you must take 
this remark about theology for what it is worth, according 
to his standpoint. 

He would have no forgiveness for any one, Dut absolute 
justice. He would have a gospel of intelligence. He 
would say: "Be honest, be forgiving, be merciful and 
stand upon those as rocks." Now I ask you where do you 
get an example and ground of good fellowship that is equal 
to that which we have in Jesus Christ? I ask you with 
regard to the gospel of intelligence where you have such 
teaching of principles of intelligence as in the teachings of 
Jesus Christ? Who is the teacher commanding honesty 
pardon, and mercy, except Jesus Christ? And then, are 
we to refuse Him our allegiance who comes and proclaims 
Himself a ransom for us from the condemnation and power 
of some one through whom we can be forgiven and so 
redeemed that we go forth to sin no more, and turn around 
■end contemptuously decline pardon, and discard the redemp- 
tion which we so urgently need? Go and preach that gos- 
pel through the wide world — I mean the gospel he enun- 
ciated last Sunday afternoon — and see where you will have 
any hearts that will rise up and hate the evil that is in 
themselves, and not only that has brought trouble 
upon them by the evil that they have done toward 
other people, but hate the evil that is in themselves, and 
learn to believe in that God and Father who is the source 
of all piety, as He is the source of all holiness, and whose 
life shall testify to the reality of the change that has taken 
place in transforming them from all that is evil into all 
that is good, and all that is lovely, and all that is honest, 
and all that is of good report. Preach it, and see if you 



REPLY TO INGERSOLVS NEW LECTURE. 



will get any such result as that which we do get, and have 
got all the ages along from the preaching of the gospel of 
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ 

My dear brethren and sisters, I have detained you all 
this long time, merely with taking up some points of that 
long lecture last Sunday afternoon and endeavoring to show 
you how utterly untrustworthy the principles are upon 
which that lecture goes, and how little you have to fear, 
and I believe it in my soul you have but little to fear from 
any such attacks made upon the gospel of our Lord and 
Savior Jesus Christ, or the trustworthiness of the record of 
this holy book. 

I must not so far trespass upon your patience as to keep 
you longer. I have been speaking for nearly an hour now, 
but I had hoped to have answered the question, " What 
must I do to be saved?" this morning. It has taken me 
longer than I expected. I will answer that question to- 
night. I will say what I have to say on the question, 
"What must I do to be saved?" and endeavor to show you 
that the answer which the Apostle gave to that question, 
asked by the trembling jailer of Philippi, in the midnight, 
is a true and a reasonable and a trustworthy answer, and I 
trust to show that it is so. 



rREir'Xj-sr of 1 bishop zf'-a.XjXjOTTvTs. 



The Bishop Believes the Colonel is Making " True Progress." 

We have been treated quite recently to an exegesis of the 
~New Testament by the well-known author of the lecture on 
"The Gods." 

This congregation will acknowledge with me that there 
is almost an infinity of distance between that atheistic pro- 
duction and the last lecture of Col. Ingersoll. He is cer- 
tainly moving forward with gigantic strides, and although 
the last lecture was full of the most objectionable sentences 
it was such an improvement over all his previous efforts in 
the recognition of certain Christian truths, and in his 
efforts to draw a distinction between Christ and His pro- 
fessed followers, that he ought to be taken by the hand and 
encouraged to go still further in the way of light and true 
progress. 

I am glad Mr. Ingersoll ^is not lost in the treacherous 
quicksands of Straussian unbelief. He evidently does not 
believe that the Church created Christ. He does homage 
in his way to this central character of all history. He has 
too much common sense to believe that such men as the 
Apostles, or any other men, could invent this glorious^per- 
sonage. He knows that such a miracle would infinitely 
transcend all other miracles put together. I should greatly 

87 



88 



REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



enjoy hearing him turn his brilliant powers of baiiter and 
sarcasm upon Strauss and all his school, who endeavored to 
evolve all the stupendous facts of Christianity out of the 
subjective consciousness of Christians in succeeding cen- 
turies. I hope to have that pleasure yet. 

Mr. Ingersoll is in error when he says: " This Testament 
was not written for hundreds of years after the Apostles 
were dust. * * * They depended upon the inaccuracy- 
of legend, and for centuries these doctrines were blown 
about by the inconstant winds." 

The Facts in the Case. 

Now what are the facts in the case ? "When the Church 
entered the second century, the year 101, or very near that 
period, she had the New Testament in her hands. 

A friend has called my attention to a communication 
from an agnostic champion of Col. Ingersoll in the Chicago 
Tribune, which was intended to forestall any answers the 
Chicago clergymen might make. He says : "The orthodox 
ministers will say, no doubt, that there is an unbroken line 
of evidence running back to the Apostolic age as to the au- 
thenticity of the Gospels. This is not true." He then states 
that the Rev. Brooke Foss Wescott, D. D., in his " History 
of the Canon of the New Testament," page 11, says "that it 
is an error to suppose that there is such an unbroken chain 
of evidence; that a few letters of consolation and warning, 
two or three apologies addressed to heathen, a controversy 
with a Jew, a vision, and a scanty gleaming of fragments 
of lost works, comprise all Christian literature to the middle 
of the second century " (that is, to 150 A. D.). 

This is simply another specimen of the special pleading 
so marked in the treatment of these important questions. 

Dr. Wescott in this quotation refers to the whole canon 
of the New Testament, and not to the four gospels. " The 
evidence of the earliest Christian writers is not only un- 



BY BISHOP FALLOWS. 



SG 



critical and casual, but also fragmentary," he says, in rela- 
tion to the entire canon. The point he makes is, that it 
needed a more critical and literary period to gather together 
the records which had been made in the earliest times — the 
Apostolical times — and determine their canonicity. The 
whole aim of his book is to show just the opposite of what 
this agnostic defamer by a garbled extract makes him as- 
sert — viz. : that there is an unbroken line of evidence from 
the present time to the Apostolic age as to the authenticity 
of the gospels, and also of the other canonically received 
portions of the New Testament. 

This uncritical, casual, and fragmentary evidence of these 
early writers, along with the critical, close, and full treat- 
ment of the subject in succeeding years, from a historic 
highway on which we may triumphantly march over all the 
centuries, first to the upper chamber where the Pentecostal 
spirit inaugurated the visible Church for the nations, to the 
Cross of Calvary, and to the Mount of Beatitudes. Our 
Divine Lord wrote no recorded word, but He wrote Him- 
self upon the imperishable tablets of His disciples' hearts. 
They were His loving epistles. It was their sole supreme 
business to make known to the world what He had said, 
done, and suffered. Eye-witnesses and heart-witnesses, 
they went about preaching the facts and teaching the truths 
of Christianity. Their mode of communication was at first, 
perhaps, purely oral. Undoubtedly their words in some 
instances were taken down in writing by the hearers, as 
well as treasured up in their remembrance. These records, 
brief and fragmentary, multiplied. Churches began to 
multiply. In the year 64 A. D., Tacitus says the Chris- 
tians at Rome were a vast multitude. Pliny, in 112 A. D., 
in a letter to Trajan, refers to their great nnmber in the 
remote province of Bithynia. Irenseus and Tertullian, 150- 
180 A. D., state that the Christian brethren were thickly 



90 REPLY TO INOERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



scattered over the known world. Out of this original oral 
Gospel, and these written records of the Apostles' teach- 
ing, the first three Gospels were constructed. The un. 
broken tradition of the Church is that they were written by 
the persons whose names they bear. 

There is not the slightest ground for the presumption of 
& doubt in the case of Matthew. The uniform testimony 
is that he wrote his gospel in the Hebrew or the Syrio- 
Chaldaic language. No testimony could be more complete. 
The gospel we have is in Greek. We do not know who 
translated it; whether it was Matthew himself or some 
other person. There was an urgent need of such transla 
tion, for Greek was the language of the world's literature 
and the medium of communication between different 
nations. (Mr. Ingersoll made a woful lapse when he 
attempted a witticism upon the alleged ignorance of Greek 
by the Evangelists.) The unbroken line of evidence is 
that the gospel of Matthew that we he have is either the 
gospel written in Greek by that Evangelist or a translation 
by some other person made while the Evangelist was 
living. 

Not the slightest shade of suspicion, so far as we know, 
was thrown upon the genuineness of this gospel as we 
have it 

So far as known, there are not fifteen manuscripts of 
Plato extant. There are not as many of Herodotus. Not 
one of them is older than the ninth century. 

Nearly a thousand manuscripts of the New Testament 
have been consulted by critics, and at least fifty of them are 
more than a thousand years old, and some are over 1,500 
years old. 

The most competent scholars fix the date of the Syriac 
version within the first half of the second century, that is 
within 150 A. D. 



BY BISHOP FALLOWS. 



91 



The Codex Yaticanus was written about the year 300 A. 
D., and the Codex Alexandrinus about 325 A. D. The 
Codex Sinai ticus about 300 A. D., or a little earlier. 

Of a portion of the three last manuscripts I give as near 
as possible, in the illustrations before you, a fac-simile on 
an enlarged scale. 

Irenseus in his youth had been a companion of Polycarp, 
the disciple of St. John. He makes 400 quotations from 
the Four Gospels. 

Tertullian (A. D. 160) gives about 200 quotations. 

Fabian (A. D. 190) gives a " Harmony of the Foui 
Gospels." 

How Celsus, the Ingersoll of the Second Century, Did a Great Work for 

the Church. 

Celsus was the Kobert Ingersoll of the second century. 
He was an acute man, a witty and eloquent conversational- 
ist, rather fond of stretching facts and principles when it 
served his purpose, and not caring always to know the 
facts. He lived a little more than 130 years after the 
ascension of the Divine Founder of Christianity. • He at- 
tacked the Christians of his age with banter, ridicule and 
sophisms. He hunted up every difficulty in the Christians' 
pathway, and magnified all seeming discrepancies into 
irreconcilable contradictions. His attacks upon the Chris- 
tian system live only in the famous reply to them made by 
Origen. This unbeliever, although he caused great an- 
noyance to the believers in Christ living in his day, and 
seemed to many to be disturbing the foundations of the 
Christian faith, rendered more real service to Christianity 
than any father of undisputed orthodoxy in the Church. He 
admits all the grand facts and doctrines of the gospel, as 
they were preached by the Apostles, and contained in their 
acknowledged writings, for the sake of opposing them. He 
makes in his attacks eighty quotations from the New Tes- 



92 REPLY TO INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



tament, and appeals to it as containing the sacred writings 
of Christians, universally received by them as credible and 
Divine. 

He is, therefore, the very best witness we can summon 
to prove that the New Testament " was not written hun- 
dreds of years after the Apostles were dust;" but in less 
than a century and a half had been received by the Chris- 
tian Church all over the world. He expressly quotes both 
the synoptical gospels, as they are termed (the first three 
gospels), and the Gospel of St. John. 

It was stated in the Pan-Presbyterian Council at Phila- 
delphia, last Friday, by the Rev. Dr. Humphrey, a gentle- 
man whom I know to be profound and scholarly, "that 
while the Bible contains the names of about four thousand 
persons and places, in not a single instance had modern 
discovery, through explorations in ancient places, shown 
one of the four thousand names to have been a myth or one 
of the ruins to have been misplaced." I can imagine I 
hear Mr. Ingersoll, in his emphatic way, saying, " I like 
that; good. A Bible that is so true to historic fact 
demands my attention. It is a proof presumptive that the 
gospel records are true." 



INGERSOLL'S NEW DEPARTURE. 



HIS LECTURE ENTITLED "WHAT SHALL WE DO 
TO BE SAVED ? " 



Delivered in McVicker's Theatre, Chicago, Sept. 19, 1880. 



[From the Chicago Times, Verbatim Report,] 
Ladies and Gentlemen: Fear is the dungeon of the mind, 
and superstition is a dagger with which hypocrisy assassinates 
the soul. Courage is liberty. I arn in favor of absolute freedom 
of thought. In the realm of the mind every one is a monarch. 
Every one is robed, sceptered, and crowned, and every one wears 
the purple of authority. I belong to the republic of intellectual 
liberty, and only those are good citizens of that republic who de- 
pend upon reason and upon persuasion, and only those are 
traitors who resort to brute force. 

Now, I beg of you all to forget just for a few moments that you 
are Methodists or Baptists or Catholics or Presbyterians, and let 
us for an hour or two remember only that we are men and women. 
And allow me to say "man" and "woman" are the highest 
titles that can be bestowed' upon humanity. "Man" and 
" woman." And let us if possible banish all fear from the mind. 
Do not imagine that there is some being in the infinite expanse 
who is not willing that every man and woman should think for 
himself and herself. Do no not imagine that there is any being 
who would give to his children the holy torch of reason and then 
damn them for following where the holy light led. Let us have 
courage. 

ft Priests have invented a crime called " blasphemy," and behind 

[U 



INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



that crime hypocrisy has crouched for thousands of years. There 
is but one blasphemy, and that is injustice. There is but one 
worship, and that is justice! 

You need not fear the anger of a God whom you cannot injure. 
Kather fear to injure your fellow-men. Do not be afraid of a 
crime you cannot commit: Kather be afraid of the one that you 
may commit. 

There was a Jewish gentleman went into a restaurant to get his 
dinner, and the devil of temptation whispered in his ear: "Eat 

some bacon." 

He knew if there was anything in the universe calculated to 
excite the wrath of the Infinite Being, who made every shining 
star, it was to see a gentleman eating bacon. He knew it, and he 
knew the Infinite Being was looking, and that he was the Infinite 
Eavesdropper of the universe. But his appetite got the better of 
his conscience, as it often has with us all, and he ate that bacon. 
He knew it was wrong. When he went into that restaurant the 
weather was delightful, the sky was as blue as June, and when he 
came out the sky was covered with angry clouds, the lightning 
leaping from one to the other, and the earth shaking beneath the 
voice of the thunder. He went back into that restaurant with a 
face as white as milk, and he said to one of the keepers : 

" My God, did you ever hear such a fuss about a little piece of 
bacon?" 

As long as we harbor such opinions of Infinity ; as long as we 
imagine the heavens to be filled with such tyranny, so long the 
sons of men will be cringing, intellectual cowards. Let us think, 
and let us honestly express our thought. 

Do not imagine for a moment that I think people who disagree 
with me are bad people. I admit, and I cheerfully admit, that a 
very large proportion of mankind and a very large majority, a vast 
number are reasonably honest. I believe that most Christians 
believe what they teach ; that most ministers are endeavoring to 
make this world better. I do not pretend to be better than they 
are. It is an intellectual question. It is a question, first, of in- 
tellectual liberty, and after that, a question to be settled at the bar 
of human reason. I do not pretend to be better than they are. 
Probably I am a good deal worse than many of them, but that is 
not the question. The question is : " Bad as I am, have I a right 
to think?" And I think I have, for two reasons. 

First, I can't help it. And secondly, I like it. The whole ques 



"WHAT SHALL WE BO TO BE SAVEDt" 



3 



tion is right at a point. If I have not a right to express my 
thoughts, who has ? 

"Oh" they say, "we will allow you, we will not burn you." 

"All right ; why won't you burn me ?" 

"Because we think a decent man will allow others to think and 
to express his thought." 

"Then the reason you do not persecute me for my thought is 
that you believe it would be infamous in you!" 

"Yes." 

"And yet you worship a God who will, as you declare, punish 
me forever." 

The next question then is : Can I commit a sin against God by 
thinking? If God did not intend I should think, why did He give 
me a "thinker." Now, then, we have got what they call the Chris- 
tian system of religion, and thousands of people wonder how I can 
be wicked enough to attack that system. 

There are many good things about it, and I shall never attack 
anything that I believe to be good! I shall never fear to attack 
anything I honestly believe to be wrong! We have, I say, what 
they call the Christian religion, and, I find, just in proportion that 
nations have been religious, just in the proportion they have gone 
back to barbarism. I find that Spain, Portugal, Italy are the three 
worst nations in Europe; I find that the nation nearest infidel is 
the most prosperous— France. 

And so I say there can be no danger in the exercise of absolute 
intellectual freedom. I find among ourselves the men who think 
at least as good as those who do not. We have, I say, a Christian 
system, and that system is founded upon what they are pleased to 
call the "New Testament." Who wrote the New Testament ? I 
don't know. Who does know ? Nobody ! 

We have found some fifty-two manuscripts containing portions 
of the New Testament. Some of those manuscripts leave out five 
or six books— many of them. Others more ; others less. No two 
of these manuscripts agree. Nobody knows who wrote these 
manuscripts. They are all written in Greek ; the disciples of 
Christ knew only Hebrew. Nobody ever saw, so far as we know, 
one of the original Hebrew manuscripts. Nobody ever saw any- 
body who had seen anybody who had heard of anybody that had 
seen anybody that had ever seen one of the original Hebrew man- 
uscripts. No doubt the clergy of your city have told you these 
facts thousands of times, and they will be obliged to me for having 



4 



IJYixERS OLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



repeated them once more. These manuscripts are written in what 
are called capital Greek letters. They are called Uncial charac- 
ters; and the New Testament was not divided into chapters and 
verses, even, until the year of grace 1551. Recollect it. 

In the original the manuscripts and gospels are signed by no- 
body. The epistles are addressed to nobody ; and they are signed 
by the same person. All the addresses, all the pretended ear- 
marks showing to whom they are written and by whom they are 
written are simply interpolations, and everybody who has studied 
the subject knows it. 

It is further admitted that even these manuscripts have not 
been properly translated, and they have a syndicate now making 
a new translation ; and I suppose that I cannot tell whether I 
really believe the Testament or not until I see that new trans- 
lation. 

Fou must remember, also, one other thing. Christ never wrote 
a solitary word of the New Testament— not one word. There is 
an account that he once stooped and wrote something in the sand, 
but that has not been preserved. He never told anybody to write 
a word. He never said : " Matthew, remember this. Mark, don't 
forget to put that down. Luke, be sure that in your gospel you 
have this. John, don't forget it." Not one word. And it has 
always seemed to me that a Being coming from another world, 
with a message of infinite importance to mankind, should at least 
have verified that message by his own signature. 

Why was nothing written? I will tell you. In my judgment 
they expected the end of the world in a very few days. That gen- 
eration was not to pass away until the heavens should be rolled up 
as a scroll, and until the earth should melt with fervent heat. 
That was their belief. They believed that the world was to be 
destroyed, and that there was to be another coming, and that the 
saints were then to govern the world. And they even went so far 
among the Apostles, as we frequently do now before election, as to 
divide out the offices in advance. This Testament was not written 
for hundreds of years after the Apostles were dust. These facts 
lived in the open mouth of credulity. They were in the waste- 
baskets of forgetfulness. They depended upon the inaccuracy of 
legend, and for centuries these doctrines and stories were blown 
about by the inconstant winds. And, finally, when reduced to 
writing, some gentleman would write by the side of the passage 
his idea of it, and the next copyist would put that in as a part of 



WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED?" 5 



the text. And, finally, when it was made, and the Church got in 
trouble, and wanted a passage to help it out, one was interpolated 
to order. So that now it is among the easiest things in the world 
to pick out at least one hundred interpolations in the Testament. 
And I will pick some of them out before I get through. 

And let me say here, once for all, that for the man Christ I have | 
infinite respeGt. Let me say, once for all, that the place where 
man has died for man is holy ground ; and let me say, once for all, 
to that great and serene man I gladly pay the homage of my 
admiration and my tears. He was a reformer in His day. He 
was an infidel in His time. He was regarded as a blasphemer, and 
His life was destroyed by hypocrites, who have, in all ages, done 
what they could to trample freedom out of the human mind. 
Had I lived at that time I would have been His friend, and should 
He come again He would not find a better friend than I will be. 

That is for the man. For the theological creation I have a dif- 
ferent feeling. If He was, in fact, God, He knew that there was 
no such thing as death. He knew that what we call death was 
but the eternal opening of the golden gates of everlasting joy ; and 
it took no heroism to face a death that was simply eternal life. 

But when a man, when a poor boy sixteen years of age, goes 
upon the field of battle to keep his flag in heaven, not knowing but 
that death ends all— not knowing but that, when the shadows 
creep over him, the darkness will be eternal— there is heroism. 

And so for the man who, in the darkness, said: "My God, why 
hast Thou forsaken Me?"— for that man I have nothing but 
respect, admiration, and love. 

A while ago I made up my mind to find out what was necessary 
for me to do in order to be saved. If I have got a soul, I want it 
saved. I do not wish to lose anything that is of value. For thou 
sands of years the world has been asking that question : " "What 
shall we do to be saved ? " 

Saved from poverty? No. Saved from crime ? No. Tyranny? 
No. But " What shall we do to be saved from the eternal wrath 
of the God who made us all ?" 

If God made us, He will not destroy us. Infinite wisdom never 
made a poor investment. And upon all the works of an infinite 
God, a dividend must finally be declared. The pulpit has cast a 
shadow over even the cradle. The doctrine of endless punish- 
ment has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. I despise 
it, and I defy it. 



6 



INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



I made up my mind, I say, to see what I had to do in order 
to save my soul according to the Testament, and thereupon I read 
it. I read the gospel, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. But I 
found that the Church had been deceiving me. I found that the 
clergy did not understand their own book. I found that they had 
been building upon passages that had been interpolated. I found 
that they had been building upon passages that were entirely 
untrue. And I will tell you why I think so. 

The first of *e these gospels was written by St. Matthew, 
according to the claim. Of course he never wrote a word of it. 
Never saw it. Never heard of it. But, for the purposes of this 
lecture, I will admit that he wrote it. I will admit that he was 
with Christ for three years; that he heard much of His conversa- 
tion daring that time, and that he became impregnated with the 
doctrines, or dogmas, and the ideas of Jesus Christ. 

Now let us see what Matthew says we must do in order to be 
saved. And I take it that, if this be true, Matthew is as good an 
authority as any minister in the world. 

The first thing I find upon the subject of salvation is in the fifth 
chapter of Matthew, and is embraced in what is commonly known 
as the Sermon on the Mount. It is as follows : 

" Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of 
heaven." Good! 

" Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Good I 
Whether they belonged to any church or not; whether they 
believed the Bible or not. 

" Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy." Good I 

" Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. Blessed 
are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. 
Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake," 
(that's me, little) " for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." 

In the same sermon he says : " Think not that I am come to 
destroy the law or the prophets. I am not come to destroy, but to 
fulfill." And then he makes use of this remarkable language, al- 
most as applicable to-day as it was then: "For I say unto you 
that except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of 
the Scribes and Pharisees ye shall in no wise enter into the King- 
dom of Heaven." Good! 

In the sixth chapter I find the following, and it comes directly 
after the prayer known as the Lord's prayer: "For if you forgive 
men their trespasses your Heavenly Father will also forgive you ; 



"WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED*" 



1 



but if ye torgive not men their trespasses neither will your Father 
forgive your trespasses." I accept the conditions. There is an 
offer; 1 accept it. If you will forgive men that trespass against 
you, God will forgive your trespasses against Him. I accept, and 
1 never will ask any God to treat me any better than I treat my 
fellow-men. There is a square promise. There is a contract. If 
you will forgive others God will forgive you. And it does not say 
you must believe in the Old Testament, nor be baptized, nor join 
the Church, nor keep Sunday. It simply says, if you forgive others 
God will forgive you ; and it must of necessity be true. God 
could afford to damn a forgiving man. [A voice : " Will He f or- 
give Democrats ?"] Oh, certainly. Let me say right here that I 
know lots of Democrats, great, broad, whole-souled, clever men ; 
and I love them. And the only bad thing about them is that they 
vote the Democratic ticket. And I know lots of Republicans so 
mean and narrow that the only decent thing about them is that 
they vote the Republican ticket. 

Now let me make myself plain upon that subject, perfectly 
plain. For instance, I hate Presbyterianism, but I know hundreds 
of splendid Presbyterians. Understand me. I hate Methodism, 
and yet I know hundreds of splendM Methodists. I dislike a cer- 
tain set of principles called Democracy, and yet I know thousands 
of Democrats that I respect and like. I like a certain set of prin- 
ciples — that is, most of them, — called Republicanism, and yet I 
know lots of Republicans that are a disgrace to those principles. 

I do not war against men. I do not war against persons. I war 
against certain doctrines that I believe to be wrong. And I give 
to every other human being every right that I claim for myself. 
Of course I did not intend, to-day, to tell what we must do in the 
election for the purpose of being saved. 

The next thing that I find is in the seventh chapter and the 
second verse: "For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be 
judged ; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to 
you again," Good! That suits me! 

And in the twelfth chapter of Matthew : "For whosoever shall 
do the will of my Father that is in heaven, the same is my brother 
and sister and mother. For the Son of Man shall come in the 
glory of His Father with His angels, and then He shall reward 

every man according " To the church he belongs to? No. 

To the manner in which he was baptised ? No. According to 
his creed? No. "Then he shall reward every man according to 
his works." Good! I subscribe to that doctrine. 



8 



INQEBSOLra NEW LECTURE, 



And in the sixteenth chapter: "And Jesus called a little child 
to Him and stood him in the midst ; and said, 'Verily, I say unto 
you, except ye become converted and become as little children, ye 
shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.' " I do not wonder 
that a reformer in His day that met the Scribes and Pharisees 
and hypocrites, I not wonder that at' last He turned to children 
and said : "Except ye become as little children," I do not wonder. 
And yet, see what children the children of God have been. What 
an interesting dimpled darling John Calvin was. Think of that 
prattling babe known as Jonathan Edwards ! Think of the infants 
that founded the Inquisition, that invented instruments of torture 
to tear human flesh. They were the ones who had become as 
little children. 

Sol find in the nineteenth chapter: "And behold, one came 
and said unto Him: 'Good master, what good thing shall I do 
that I may have eternal life?' and he said unto him, 'why call'st 
thou Me good? There is none good but one, and that is God, but 
if thou will enter into eternal life, keep the commandments/ and 
he said unto Him, ' Which ?' " 

Now, there is a pretty fair issue. Here is a child of God asking 
God what is necessary for him to do in order to inherit eternal 
life. And God says to him : Keep the commandments. And the 
child said to the Almighty : "Which?" Now if there ever had 
been an opportunity given to the Almighty to furnish a gentle- 
man with an inquiring mind with the necessary information upon 
that subject, here was the opportunity. "He said unto Him, 
which?" And Jesus said : " Thou shalt do no murder ; thou shalt 
not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; thou shalt not bear 
false witness; honor thy father and mother; and, thou shalt love 
thy neighbor as thyself." He did not say to him : " You must 
believe in Me— that I am the only begotten Son of the living 
God." He did not say: "You must be born again." He did 
not say : " You must believe the Bible." He did not say : " You 
must remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy." He simply 
said: "Thou shalt do no murder. Thou shalt not commit 
adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not bear false 
witness. Honor thy father and thy mother; and, thou shalt love 
thy neighbor as thyself." And thereupon the young man, who 
I think was a little " fresh," and probably mistaken, said unto 
Him : " All these things have I kept from my youth up." 1 don't 
believe that. 



"WHAT BHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED?" 9 

Now comes in an interpolation. In the old times when the 
Church got a little scarce for money, they always put in a passage 
praising poverty. ISo they had this young man ask: " What lack 
I yet ?" And Jesus said unto him : " If thou wilt be perfect, go 
and sell that thou hast and give it to the poor, and thou shalt have 
treasures in heaven." The Church has always been willing to 
swap of treasures in heaven for cash down. 

And when the next verse was written the Church must have 
been nearly dead-broke. " And again I say unto you, it is easier 
for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man 
to enter into the kingdom of God." Did you ever know a wealthy 
disciple to unload on account of that verse ? 

And then comes another verse, which I believe is an interpola- 
tion : " And every one that has forsaken houses, or brethren or 
sisters, or father or mother, or wife or children, or lands, for my 
name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit ever- 
lasting life." Christ never said it. Never. "Whosoever shall 
forsake father and mother." Why He said to this man that asked 
him: "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" among other 
things, He said : " Honor thy father and thy mother." And we 
turn over the page and He says : " If you will desert your father 
and your mother you shall have everlasting life." It won't do. 
If you will desert your wife and your little children, or your 
lands— the idea of putting a house and lot on equality with wife 
and children. Think of that I I do, not accept the terms. I will 
never desert the one I love for the promise of any God. 

It is far more important that we shall love our wives than that 
we shall love God. And I will tell you why. You cannot help 
Him. You can help her. You can fill her life with the perfume 
of perpetual joy. It is far more important that you love your 
children than that you love Jesus Christ. And why? If He is 
God you cannot help him, but you can plant a little flower of hap- 
piness in every footstep of the child, from the cradle until you die 
in that child's arms. Let me tell you to-day it is far more im- 
portant to build a home than to erect a church. The holiest temple 
beneath the stars is a home that love has built. And the holiest 
altar in all the wide world is the fireside around which gather 
father and mother and children. 

There was a time when people believed that infamy. There 
was a time when they did desert fathers and mothers, and wives 
and children. St. Augustine says to the devotee: "Fly to the 



10 



INOEmOLVS NEW LECTURE, 



desert, and though your wife put her arms around your neck, tear 
her hands away; she is a temptation of the devil. Though your 
father and mother throw their bodies athwart your threshold, step 
over them ; and though your children pursue and with weeping 
eyes beseech you to return, listen not. It is the temptation of the 
evil one. Fly to the desert and save your soul." Think of such a 
soul being worth saving. While I live I propose to stand by the 
folks. 

Here there is another condition of salvation. I find it in the 
25th chapter: " Then shall the King say unto them on his right 
hand, Come, ye blessed of my father, inherit the kingdom prepared 
for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungred 
and ye gave Me meat ; I was thirsty and ye gave Me drink ; I was 
a stranger and ye took Me in ; naked and ye clothed Me ; and I was 
sick and ye visited Me ; and I was in prison, and ye came unto 
Me." Good! And I tell you to-night that God will not punish 
with eternal thirst the man who has put the cup of cold water to 
the lips of his neighbor. God will not allow to live in eternal 
nakedness of pain the man who has clothed others. 

For instance, here is a shipwreck, and here is some brave sailor 
stands aside and allows a woman whom he never saw before to 
take his place in the boat, and he stands there, grand and serene 
as the wide sea, and he goes down. Do you tell me there is any 
God who will push the life-boat from the shore of eternal life, 
when that man wishes to step in ? Do you tell me that God can 
be unpitying to the pitiful, that He can be unforgiving to the for- 
giving? I deny it ; and from the aspersions of the pulpit I seek 
to rescue the reputation of the Deity. 

Now, I have read you everything in Matthew on the subject of 
salvation. That is all there is. Not one word about believing 
anything. It is the gospel of deed, the gospel of charity, the gospel 
of self-denial ; and if only that gospel had been preached, persecu- 
tion never would have shed one drop of blood. Not one. 

Now, according to the testimony, Matthew was well acquainted 
with Christ. According to the testimony, he had been with Him, 
and His companion for years, and if it was necessary to believe 
anything in order to get to heaven, Matthew should have told us. 
But he forgot it. Or he didn't believe it. Or he never heard of 
it. You can take your choice. 

The next is Mark. Now let us see what he says. And for the 
purpose of this lecture it is sufficient for me to say that Mark 



WHAT SHALL WE BO TO BE SAVEDf" 



11 



agrees, substantially, with Matthew, that God will be merciful to 
the merciful ; that He will be kind to the kind ; that He will pity 
the pitying. And it is precisely, or substantially, the same as 
Matthew until I come to the 16th verse of the 16th chapter, and 
then I strike an interpolation, put in by hypocrisy, put in by 
priests, who longed to grasp with bloody hands the sceptre of uni- 
versal authority. 

Let me read it to you. And it is the most infamous passage in 
the Bible. Christ never said it. No sensible man ever said it. 
"And He said unto them"— that is, unto His disciples— "Go ye into 
all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. He that 
believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and he that believeth not 
shall be damned." 

Now, I propose to prove to you that that is an interpolation. 
Now how will I do it? In the first place, not one word is said 
about belief in Matthew. In the next place, not one word about 
belief in Mark, until I come to that verse. And when is that said 
to have been spoken ? According to Mark, it is a part of the last 
conversation of Jesus Christ — just before, according to the account, 
He ascended bodily before their eyes. If there ever was any 
important thing happened in this world, that is one of them. If 
there was any conversation that people would be apt to recollect, 
it would be the last conversation with God before He rose through 
the air and seated Himself upon the throne of the Infinite. We 
have in this Testament five accounts of the last conversation hap- 
pening between Jesus Christ and His apostles. Matthew gives it. 
And yet Matthew does not state that in that conversation He said : 
" "Whoso believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and whoso believ- 
eth not shall be damned." And if He did say those words, they 
were the most important that ever fell from His lips. Matthew 
did not hear it, or did not believe it, or forgot it. 

Then I turn to Luke, and he gives an account of this same last 
conversation, and not one word does he say upon that subject. 
Now it is the most important thing, if Christ said it, that He 
ever said. 

Then I turn to John, and he gives an account of the last conver- 
sation, but not one solitary word on the subject of belief or unbe- 
lief. Not one solitary word on the subject of damnation. Not 
one. 

Then I turn to the first chapter of the Acts, and there I find an 
account of the last conversation ; and in that conversation there is 



12 



INGERSOLVS NEW LECTURE, 



not one word upon this subject. Now I say that that demonstrates 
that the passage in Mark is an interpolation. 

What other reason have I got ? That there is not one particle of 
sense in it. Why? Mo man can control his belief. You hear 
evidence for and against, and the integrity of the soul stands at the 
scales and tells which side rises and which side falls. You cannot 
believe as you wish. You must believe as you must. And He 
might as well have said : " Go into all the world and preach the 
gospel, and whosoever has red hair shall be saved, and whosoever 
hath not shall be damned." 

I have another reason. I am much obliged to the gentleman 
who interpolated these passages. I am much obliged to him that 
he put in some more— two more. Now hear : 

"And these signs shall follow them that believe." Good! 

"In My name shall they cast out devils. They shall speak with 
new tongues, and they shall take up serpents, and if they drink 
any deadly thing it shall not hurt them. They shall lay hands on 
the sick, and they shall recover." 

Bring on your believer! Let him cast out a devil. I do not 
claim a large one. Just a " little one for a cent." Let him take up 
serpents. "And if he drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt 
him." Let me mix up a dose for the theological believer, and if 
it does not hurt him I'll join a church. "Oh! but," they say, 
" those things only lasted through that Apostolic age." Let us see. 
Go into all the world and preach the gospel, and whosoever be- 
lieves and is baptised shall be saved, and these signs shall follow 
them that believe." 

How long? I think at least until they had gone into all the 
world. Certainly these signs should follow until all the world 
had been visited. And yet if that declaration was in the mouth 
of Christ, he then knew that one-half of the world was unknown 
and that He would be dead 1,492 years before His disciples would 
know that there was another world. And yet he said, "Go into all 
the world and preach the gospel," and He knew then that it would 
be 1,492 years before anybody went. Well, if it was worth while 
to have signs follow believers in the old world, surely it was 
worth while to have signs follow believers in the new world. 
Arid the very reason that signs should follow would be to con- 
vince the unbeliever, and there are as many unbelievers now as 
ever, and the signs are as necessary to-day as they ever were. I 
would like a few myself. 



WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED? 



This frightful declaration, " He that believeth and is baptised 
shall be saved, but he that believeth not shall be damned," has 
filled the world with agony and crime. Every letter of this pas- 
sage has been sword and fagot ; every word has been dungeon and 
chain. That passage made the sword of persecution drip with 
innocent blood for ten centuries. That passage made the horizon 
of a thousand years lurid with the flames of fagots. That passage 
contradicts the Sermon on the Mount. That passage travesties the 
Lord's Prayer. That passage turns the splendid religion of deed 
and duty into the superstition of creed and cruelty. I deny it. It 
is infamous! Christ never said it! Now I come to Luke, and it 
is sufficient to say that Luke substantially agrees with Matthew 
and with Mark. Substantially agrees, as the evidence is read. I 
like it. 

"Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father is also merciful." 
Good! 

" Judge not and ye shall not be judged. Condemn not and ye 
shall not be condemned ; forgive and ye shall be forgiven." Good ! 

"Give and it shall be given unto you good measure, pressed 
down, shaken together, running over." Good ! I like it. 

" For the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured 
to you again." 

He agrees substantially with Mark ; he agrees substantially with 
Matthew ; and I come at last to the nineteenth chapter, 

"And Zaccheus stood and said unto the Lord, 'Behold, Lord, the 
one-half of my goods I give to the poor, and if I have taken any- 
thing from any man by false accusation, I restore him four-fold/ 
And Jesus said unto him, 'This day is salvation come to this 
house.'" 

That is good doctrine. He didn't ask Zaccheus what he be- 
lieved. He didn't ask him, " Do you believe in the Bible ? Do you 
believe in the five points ? Have you ever been baptised — sprink- 
led? Oh! immersed. " Half of my goods I give to the poor, and 
if I have taken anything from any man by false accusation, I 
restore him four- fold." *'And Christ said, 'This day is salvation 
come to this house.' " Good ! 

I read also in Luke that Christ when upon the cross forgave 
His murderers, and that is considered the shining gem in the 
crown of His mercy — that He forgave His murderers. That He 
forgave the men who drove the nails in His hands, in His feet, that 
plunged a spear in His side ; the soldier that in the hour of death 



14 



INGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



offered Him in mockery the bitterness to drink ; that He forgave 
them all freely, and that yet, although He would forgive them, He 
will in the nineteenth century damn to eternal fire an honest man 
for the expression of his honest thoughts. That won't do. I find 
too, in Luke, an account of two thieves that were crucified at the 
same time. The other gospels speak of them. One says they both 
railed upon Him. Another says nothing about it. In Luke we 
are told that one did, but one of the thieyes looked and pitied 
Christ, and Christ said to that thief : 

" This day shalt thou meet me in Paradise." 

Why did He say that ? Because the thief pitied Him. And 
God cannot afford to trample beneath the feet of His infinite 
wrath the smallest bios som of pity that ever shed its perfume in 
he human heart ! 

Who was this thief? To what church did he belong? I 
don't know. The fact that he was a thief throws no light on 
that question. Who was he? What did he believe? i dont 
know. Did he believe in the Old Testament? In the mira- 
cles? I don't know. Did he believe that Christ was God? I 
don't know. Why, then, was the promise made to him that he 
should meet Christ in Paradise. Simply because he pitied inno- 
cence suffering on the cross. 

God cannot afford to damn any man that is capable of pitying 
anybody. 

And now we come to John, and that is where the trouble com- 
mences. The other gospels teach that God will be merciful to the 
merciful, forgiving to the forgiving, kind to the kind, loving to 
the loving, just to the just, merciful to the good. 

Now we come to John, and here Is another doctrine. And allow 
me to say that John was not written until centuries after the 
others. This, the Church got up: 

"And Jesus answered and said unto him: 'Furthermore I 
say unto thee that except a man be born again he cannot see the, 
Kingdom of God.' " 

Why didn't He tell Matthew that? Why didn't He tell Luke 
that? Why didn't He tell Mark that? They never heard of ii 
or forgot it, or they didn't believe it. 

" Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot 
enter into the Kingdom of God." Why ? 

" That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born 
of the spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said unto thee, ' ye must 



"WHAT SHALL WE BO TO BE SAVED V 



15 



be born again.' That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that 
which is born of the spirit is spirit,"— and He might have ad ded 
that which is born of water is water. 

" Marvel not that I say unto thee, 'ye must be born again.'" 
And then the reason is given, and I admit I did not understand 
it myself until I read the reason, and when you read the reason, 
you will understand it as well as I do ; and here it is : " The 
wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou nearest the sound thereof, 
and canst not tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth." So, 
I find in the b ook of John the idea of the real presence. 

So I find in the book of John, that in order to be saved we must 
eat of the flesh and we must drink of the blood of Jesus Christ, 
and if that gospel is true, the Catholic Church is right. But it is 
not true. I cannot believe it, and yet for all that it may be true. 
But I don't believe it. Neither do I believe there is any God in 
the universe who will damn a man simply for expressing his 
belief. 

"Why," they say to me, "suppose all this should turn out to be 
true, and you should come to the day of judgment ana find all 
these things to be true. What would you do then ?" I would walk 
up like a man, and say, " I was mistaken." 

"And suppose God was about to pass judgment on you, what 
would you say ?" I would say to him, "Do unto others as you 
would that others should do unto you." Why not ? 

I am told that I must render good for evil. I am told that if 
smitten on one cheek I must turn the other. I am told that I 
must overcome evil w ith good. Iam told that I must love my 
enemies ; and will it do for this God who tells me, " Love my 
enemies," to say, " I will damn mine ? " No, it will not do. It will 
not do. 

In the book of John all this doctrine of regeneration; all |this 
doctrine that it is necessary to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ ; 
all the doctrine that salvation depends upon belief— in this book 
of John all these doctrines find their warrant ; nowhere else. 

Bead these three gospels and then read John, and you will agree 
with me that the gospels that teach "We must be kind, we must 
be merciful, we must be forgiving, and thereupon that God will 
forgive us," is true, and then say whether or no that doctrine is 
not better than the doctrine that somebody else can be good for 
you, that somebody else can be bad for you, and that the only way 
to get to heaven is to believe something that you do- not under- 
stand. 



16 



WGERSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



Kow upon these gospels that I have read the churches rest ; and 
out of those things that 1 have read they have made their creeds. 
And the first Church to make a creed, so far as I know, was the 
Catholic. I take it that is the first Church that had any power, 
That is the Church that has preserved all these miracles for us. 
That is the Church that preserved the manuscripts for us. That 
is the Church whose word we have to take. That Church is the 
first witness that Protestantism brought to the bar of history to 
prove miracles that took place eighteen hundred years ago; and 
while the witness is there Protestantism takes tains to say: 
"You can't believe one word that witness says, now." 

That Church is the only one that keeps up a constant communi- 
cation with heaven through the instrumentality of a large number 
of decayed saints. That Church is an agent of Cod on earth. That 
Church has a person who stands in the place of Deity; and that 
Church, according to their doctrine, is infallible. That Church has 
persecuted to the exact extent of her power— and always will. In 
Spain that Church stands erect, and that Church is arrogant. In 
the United States that Church crawls. But the object in both 
countries is the same, and that is the destruction of intellectual 
liberty. That Church teaches us that we can make God happy by 
being miserable ourselves. That Church teaches you that a nun 
is holier in the sight of God than a loving mother with a child in 
her thrilled and thrilling arms. That Church teaches you that a 
priest is better than a father. That Church teaches you that celi- 
bacy is better than that passion of love that has made everything 
of beauty in this world. That Church teaches you that celibacy is 
better than that passion of love that has made everything of 
beauty in this world. That Church tells the girl of 16 or IS years 
of age, with eyes like dew and light— that girl with the red of 
health in the white of her beautiful cheeks— tells that girl, " Put 
on the veil woven of death and night, kneel upon stones, and you 
will please God." 

1 tell you that, by law, no girl should be allowed to take the veil, 
and renounce the beauties of the world, until she was at least 25 
years of age. Wait until she knows what she wants. 

I am opposed to allowing these spider-like priests weaving webs 
to catch the flies of youth ; and there ought to be a law appointing 
commissioners to visit such places twice a year, and release every 
person who expresses a desire to be released. I don't believe in 
keeping penitentiaries for God. Ko doubt they are honest about 
it. That is not the question. 



"WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVEDt 



17 



Now this Church, after a few centuries of thought, made a creed, 
and that creed is the foundation of orthodox religion. Let me 
read it to you : 

" Whosoever will be saved, before all things it is necessary that 
he hold the Catholic faith; which faith, except every one do keep 
entire and inviolate, without doubt, he shall everlastingly perish." 
Now the faith is this : " That we worship one God in trinity, and 
trinity in unity." 

Of course you understand how that's done, and there's no need 
of my explaining it. " Neither confounding the persons nor divid- 
ing the substance." 

You see what a predicament that would leave the Deity in if 
you divided the substance. 

For one is the person of the Father, another of the Son, and 
another of the Holy Ghost ; but the Godhead of the Father, and of 
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost is all one"— you know what I mean 
by Godhead. "In glory equal, and in majesty co-eternal. Such as 
the Father is, such is the Son, such is the Holy Ghost. The 
Father is uncreated, the Son uncreated, the Holy Ghost uncreated, 
The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible, the Holy 
Ghost incomprehensible." And that is the reason we know so 
much about the thing. "The Father is eternal, the Son eternal, 
the Holy Ghost eternal," and yet there are not three eternals, only 
one eternal, as also there are not three uncreated, nor three in- 
comprehensibles, only one uncreated, one incomprehensible. 

"In like manner, the Father is almighty, the Son almighty, the 
Holy Ghost almighty." Yet there are not three almighties, only 
one Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son God, the Holy 
Ghost God, and yet not three Gods ; and so likewise, the Father is 
Lord, the Son is Lord, the Holy Ghost is Lord, yet there are not 
three Lords, for as we are* compelled by the Christian truth to 
acknowledge every person by himself to be God and Lord, so 
we are all forbidden by the Catholic religion to say there are three 
Gods, or three Lords. " The Father is made of no one ; not created 
or begotten. The Son is from the Father alone, not made, nor 
created, or begotten. The Holy Ghost is from the Father and the 
Son, not made nor begotten, but proceeded—" 

You know what proceeding is. 

"So there is one Father, not three Fathers." Why should there 
be three Fathers, and only one Son ? 
u One Son, and not three Sons ; one Holy Ghost, not three Holy 



18 



INGEKSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



Ghosts; and in this Trinity there is nothing before or after- 
ward, nothing greater or less, but the whole three persons are 
co-eternal with one another, and co-equal, so that in all things 
the unity is to be worshiped in Trinity, and the Trinity is 
to be worshiped in unity, and therefore we will believe. Those 
who will be saved must thus think of the Trinity. Further- 
more, it is necessary to everlasting salvation that he also 
believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now 
the right of this thing is this : That we believe and confess that 
our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is both God and man. He 
is God of the substance of His Father begotten before the world 
was. That was a good while before His mother lived. 

"And he is man of the substance of His mother, born in this 
world, perfect God and perfect man, and the rational soul in 
human flesh subsisting equal to the Father, according to His God- 
head, but less than the Father, according to his manhood, who 
being both God and man is not two but one— one not by conversion 
of God into flesh but by the taking of the manhood into God." 

You see that it is a great deal easier than the other. "One 
altogether, not by a confusion of substance, but by unity of 
person, for as the rational soul and the flesh is one man, so God 
the man, is one Christ, who suffered for our salvation, descended 
into hell, rose again the third day from the dead, ascended into 
heaven, and He sitteth at the right hand of God, the Father 
Almighty, and He shall come to judge the living and the dead." 

In order to be saved it is necessary to believe this. What a 
blessing that we do not have to understand it. And in order to 
compel the human intellect to get upon its knees before that 
infinite absurdity, thousands and millions have suffered agonies ; 
thousands and millions have perished in dungeons and in fire; 
and if all the bones of all the victims of the Catholic Church 
could be gathered together, a monument higher than all the 
pyramids would rise in our presence, and the eyes even of priests 
would be suffused with tears. 

That Church covered Europe with cathedrals and dungeons. 
That Church robbed men of the jewel of the soul. That Church 



had ignorance upon its knees. That Church went into part- 
nership with the tyrants of the throne, and between these two 
vultures, the altar and the throne, the heart of man was devoured- 
Of course I have met, and cheerfully admit that there thousands 
of good Catholics ; but Catholicism is*contrary to human liberty. 




"W&AT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED?" 



19 



Catholicism bases salvation upon belief. Catholicism teaches 
man to trample his reason under foot. And for that reason, it is 
wrong. 

Now, the next Church that comes along in the way that I wish 
to speak is the Episcopalian. That was founded by Henry VIII., 
now in heaven. He cast off: Queen Catherine and Catholicism 
together. And he accepted Episcopalianism and Annie Boleyn at 
the same time. That Church, if it had a few more ceremonies, 
would be Catholic. If it had a few less, nothing. We have an 
Episcopalian Church in this country, and it has all the imperfec- 
tion of a poor relation. It is always boasting of a rich relative. 
In England the creed is made by law, the same as we pass statutes 
here. And when a gentleman dies in England, in order to 
determine whether he shall be saved or not, it is necessary for the 
power of heaven to read the acts of Parliament. It becomes a 
question of law, and sometimes a man is damned on a very nice 
point. Lost on demurrer. 

A few years ago, a gentleman by the name of Seabury, Samuel 
Seabury, was sent over to England to get some apostolic succession. 
We hadn't a drop in the house. It was necessary for the bishops 
of the English Church to put their hands upon his head. They 
refused. There was no act of Parliament justifying it. He had 
then to go to the Scotch bishops; and, had the Scotch bishops 
refused, we never would have had any apostolic succession in the 
new world. And God would have been driven out of half the 
world ; and the true church never could have been founded. But 
the Scotch bishops put their hands on his head, and now we have 
an unbroken succession of heads and hands from St. Paul to the 
last bishop. 

In this country the Episcopal Church has done some good, and 
I want to thank that Church. Having, on an average, less religion 
than the others, on an average, you have done more good to man- 
kind. You preserved some of the humanities. You did not hate 
music ; you did not absolutely despise painting, and you did not 
altogether abhor architecture, and you finally admitted that it was 
no worse to keep time with your feet than with your hands. And 
some went so far as to say that people could play cards, and that 
God would overlook it, or would look the other way. For all 
these things accept my thanks. 

When I was a boy, the other Churches looked upon dancing as 
probably the mysterious sin against the Holy Ghost ; and they 



20 



IXGEESOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



used to teach that when four boys got in a hay-mow, playing 
seven-up, that the Eternal God stood whetting the sword of His 
eternal wrath waiting to strike them down to the lowest hell. 
And so that Church has done some good. 

After a while, in England, a couple of gentlemen, or a couple of 
men by the name of Wesley and Whitfield, said : "If everybody 
is going to hell, nearly, somebody ought to mention it. The 
Episcopal clergy said: "Keep still; don't tear your gown." 
AVesley and Whitfield said: "This frightful truth ought to be 
proclaimed from the housetops at every opportunity, from the 
highway of every occasion." They were good, honest men. They 
believed their doctrine. And they said : "If there is a hell, and a 
Kiagara of souls pouring over an eternal precipice of ignorance, 
somebody ought to say something." They were right ; somebody 
ought, if such thing was true. Wesley was a believer in the 
Bible, He believed in the actual presence of the Almighty. God 
used to do miracles for him ; used to put off a rain several days to 
give his meeting a chance ; used to cure his horse of lameness ; used 
to cure Mr. Wesley's headaches. 

And Mr. Wesley also believed in the actual existence of the 
devil. He believed that devils had possession of people. He 
talked to the devil when he was in folks, and the devil told him 
that he was going to leave ; and that he was going into another 
person ; that he would be there at a certain time ; and Wesley 
went to that other person, and there the devil was, prompt to the 
minute. He regarded every conversion as an absolute warfare be- 
tween God and this devil for the possession of that human soul. 
Honest, no doubt. Mr. Wesley did not believe in human liberty. 
Honest, no doubt. Was opposed to the liberty of the colonies. 
Honestly so. Mr. Wesley preached a sermon entitled, The Cause 
and Cure of Earthquakes," in which he took the ground that 
earthquakes were caused by sin; and the only way to stop them 
was to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. No doubt an honest 
man. 

Wesley and Whitfield fell out on the question of predestination. 
Wesley insisted that God invited everybody to the feast. Whit- 
field said He did not invite those He knew would not come. 
Wesley said He did. Whitfield said : " Well, He didn't put plates 
for them, anyway." Wesley said He did. So that, when they 
were in hell, he could show them that there was a seat left 
for them. And that Church that they founded is still active. And 



"WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED? 



21 



probably no Church in the world has done so much preaching for 
as little money as the Methodists. Whitfield believed in slavery 
and advocated the slave trade. And it was of Whitfield that 
Whittier made the two lines : 

He bade the slave ships speed from coast to coast, 

Fanned by the wings of the Holy Ghost. 
We have lately had a meeting of the Methodists, and I find, by 
their statistics, that they believe they have converted 130,000 
folks in a year. That, in order to do this, they have 26,000 preach- 
ers, 226,000 Sunday-school scholars, and about $100,000,000 invested 
in church property. I find, in looking over the history of the 
world, that there are 40,000,000 or 50,000,000 of people born a year, 
and if they are saved at the rate of 130,000 a year, about how long 
will it take that doctrine to save this world ? Good, honest people ; 
they are mistaken. 

In old times they were very simple. Churches used to be like 
barns. They used to have them divided— men on that side, and 
women on this. A little barbarous. We have advanced since 
then, and we now find as a fact, demonstrated by experience, that 
a man sitting by the woman he loves can thank God as heartily as 
though sitting between two men that he has never been intro- 
duced to. 

There is another thing the Methodists should remember, and 
that is. that the Episcopalians were the greatest enemies they ever 
had. And they should remember that the Free-Thinkers have 
always treated them kindly and well. 

There is one thing about the Methodist Church in the North 
that I like. But I find that it is not Methodism that does that. 
I find that the Methodist Church in the South is as much opposed 
to liberty as the Methodist Church North is in favor of liberty. 
So it is not Methodism that is in favor of liberty or slavery. They 
differ a little in their creed from the rest. They do not believe 
that God does everything. They believe that He does His part, 
and that you must do the rest, and that getting to heaven is a 
partnership business. 

The next church is the Presbyterians— in my judgment the 
worst of all, as far as creed is concerned. This Church was founded 
by John Calvin, a murderer! John Calvin, having power in 
Geneva, inaugurated human torture. Voltaire abolished torture in 
Trance. The man who abolished torture, if the Christian religion 
be true, God is now torturing in hell ; and the man who inaugu- 
rated torture, is now a glorified angel in heaven. It won't do. 



INGERSOLVS NEW LECTURE, 



John Knox started this doctrine in Scotland, and there is this 
peculiarity about Presbyterianism, it grows best where the soil is 
poorest. I read the other day an account of a meeting between 
John Knox and John Calvin. Imagine a dialogue between a pesti- 
lence and a famine! Imagine a conversation between a block 
and an ax! As I read their conversation it seemed to me 
as though John Knox and John Calvin were made for each other ; 
that they fitted each other like the upper and lower jaws of a wild 
beast. They believed happiness was a crime ; they looked upon 
laughter as blasphemy, and they did all they could to destroy 
every human feeling, and to rill the mind with the infinite gloom 
of predestination and eternal damnation. They taught the doc- 
trine that God had a right to damn us because He made us. That 
is just the reason that He has not a right to damn us. There is 
some dust. Unconscious dust! What right has God to change 
that unconscious dust into a human being, when He knows that 
human being will sin ; and He knows that human being will sufTer 
eternal agony? Why not leave him in the unconscious dust? 
What right has an infinite God to add to the sum of human 
agony ? Suppose I knew that I could change that piece of furni- 
ture into a living, sentient human being, and I knew that that being 
would suffer untold agony forever. If I did it, I would be a fiend. 
I would leave that being in the unconscious dust. And yet we 
are told that we must believe such a doctrine, or we are to bp 
eternally damned! It won't do. 

In 1S39 there was a division in this Church, and they had a law- 
suit to see which was the Church of God. And they tried it by a 
judge and jury, and the jury decided that the new school was the 
Church of God, and then they got a new trial, and the next jury 
decided that the old school was the Church of God, and that settled 
it. That Church teaches that infinite innocence was sacrificed for 
me! I don't want it! I don't wish to go to heaven unless I can 
settle by the books, and go there because I ought to go there. I 
have said, and I say again, I don't wish to be a charity angel. 1 
have no ambition to become a winged pauper of the skies. 

The other day a young gentlemen, a Presbyterian who had just 
been converted, came to me and he gave me a tract, and he told 
me he was perfectly happy. Ugh! Says I: "Do you think a 
great many people are going to hell ?" "Oh, yes." "And you were 
perfectly happy?" "Well, he didn't know as he was quite." 
"Wouldn't you be happier if they were all going to heaven?'* 



WHAT SHALL WE BO TO BE SAVED*" 



2^ 



"Oh, yes." "Well, then, you are not perfectly happy ?" "No, he 
didn't think he was." Says I: "When you get to heaven, then 
you would be perfectly happy ?" "Oh, yes." "Now, when we are 
only going to hell, you are not quite happy; but when we are in 
hell, and you in heaven, then you will be perfectly happy? You 
won't be as decent when you get to be an angel as you are now, 
will you?" "Well," he said, "that was not exactly it." Said I. 
"Suppose your mother were in hell, would you be happy in heaven 
then ? "Well," he says, "I suppose God would know the best place 
for mother." And I thought to myself, then, if I was a woman, I 
would like to have five or six boys like that. 

It will not do. Heaven is where are those we love, and those 
who love us. And I wish to go to no world unless I can be 
accompanied by those who love me here. Talk about the con- 
solations of this infamous doctrine. The consolations of a doc- 
trine that makes a father say, "I can be happy with my daughter 
in hell ;" that makes a mother say, "I can be happy with my gen- 
erous, brave boy in hell ;" that makes a boy say, "I can enjoy the 
glory of heaven with the woman who bore me, the woman who 
would have died for me, in eternal agony." And they call that 
tidings of great joy. 

I have not time to speak of the Baptists— that Jeremy Taylor 
said were as much to be rooted out as anything that is the greatest 
pest and nuisance on the earth. Nor of the Quakers, the best of 
all, and abused by all. I can not forget that John Pox, in the 
year of grace 1640, was put in the pillory and whipped from town 
to town, scarred, put in a dungeon, beaten, trampled upon, and 
what for? Simple because he preached the doctrine: "Thou 
shalt not resist evil with evil." "Thou shalt love thy enemies.'' 
Think of what the Church must have been that day to scar the 
flesh of that loving man! Just think of it? I say I have not 
time to speak of all these sects. And of the varieties of Presby- 
terians and Campbellites. The people who think they must dive 
in order to go up. There are hundreds and hundreds of these 
sects, all founded upon this creed that I read, differing simply in 
degree. Ah! but they say to me: " You are fighting something 
that is dead. Nobody believes this, now." The preachers do not 
believe what they preach in the pulpit. The people in the pews 
do not believe what they hear preached. And they say to me: 
"You are fighting something that is dead. This is all a form, we 
do not believe a solitary creed in it. We sign it and swear that we 



24 



INGERSOLVS NEW LECTURE, 



believe it, but we don't. And none of us do. And all the ininia- 
ters, they say in private, admit that they do not believe it, not 
quite." I don't know whether this is so or not. I take it that 
they believe what they preach. I take it that when they meet and 
solemnly agree to a creed, I take it they are honest and solemnly 
believe in that creed. 

The Evangelical Alliance, made up of all orthodox denominations 
of the world, met only a few years ago, and here is their cived: 
They believe in the divine inspiration, authority, and sufficiency of 
the Holy Scriptures ; the right and duty of private judgment in 
the interpretation of Holy Scriptures, but if you interpret wrong 
you are damned. They believe in the unity of the Godhead and 
the trinity of the persons therein. They believe in the utter 
depravity of human nature. There can be no more infamous 
doctrine than that. They look upon a little child as a lump of 
depravity. I look upon it as a bud of humanity, that will, under 
proper circumstances, blossom into rich and glorious life. 

Total depravity of human nature! Here is a woman whose 
husband has been lost at sea ; the news comes that he has been 
drowned by the ever-hungry waves, and she waits. There is 
something in her heart that tells her he is alive. And she waits. 
And years afterward, as she looks down toward the little 
gate, she sees him ; he has been given back by the sea, and she 
rushes to his arms, and covers his face with kisses and with tears. 
And if that infamous doctrine is true every tear is a crime, and 
ever kiss a blasphemy. It won't do. According to that doctrine, 
if a man steals and repents, and takes back the property, the 
repentance and the taking back of the property are two other 
crimes if he is totally depraved. It is an infamy. What else do 
they believe? "The justification of a sinner by faith alone," 
without works, just faith. Believing something that you don't 
understand. Of course God cannot afford to reward a man for 
believing anything that is reasonable. God rewards only for 
believing something that is unreasonable, if you believe some- 
thing that you know is not so. What else ? They believe in the 
eternal blessedness of the righteous, and in the eternal punishment 
of the wicked. Tidings of great joy ! They are so good that they 
will not associate with Universalists. They will not associate 
with Unitarians. They will not associate with scientists. 
They will only associate with those who believed that God so 
loved the world that He made up His mind to damn the most 
of us. 



"WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED f 



25 



Then they say to me : "What do you propose ? You have torn 
this down ; what do you propose to give in the place of it ? " I 
have not torn the good down. I have only endeavored to trample 
out the ignorant, cruel fires of hell. I do not tear away the pas- 
sage, " God will be merciful to the merciful." I do not destroy the 
promise, " If you will forgive others, God will forgive you." I 
would not for anything blot out the faintest stars that shine in the 
horizon of human despair, nor in the horizon of human hope; but 
I will do what I can to get that infinite shadow out of the heart of 
man. 

"What do you propose in place of this?" 

Well, in the first place, I propose good fellowship— good friends 
all around. No matter what we believe, shake hands and let it go. 
That is your opinion. Th4s is mine : " Let us be friends." Science 
makes friends ; religion— superstition— makes enemies. They say, 
"Belief is important." I say, no, good actions are importan. 
Judge by deed, not by creed, goocl fellowship. We have 
had too many of these solemn people. Whenever I see an 
exceedingly solemn man, I know he is an exceedingly stu- 
pid man. No man of any humor ever founded any religion— never. 
Humor sees both sides, while reason is the holy light ; humor car- 
ries the lantern, and the man with a keen sense of humor is pre- 
served from the solemn stupidities of superstition. I like a man 
who has got good feeling for everybody— good fellowship. One 
man said to another : 

" Will you take a glass of wine ? " 

"I don't drink." 

" Will you smoke a cigar ? " 

" I don't smoke." 

*' Maybe you will chew something?" 

"I don't chew." 

" Let us eat some hay." 

" I tell you I don't eat hay." 

"Well, then, good-bye; for you are no company for man or 
beast." 

I believe in the gospel of cheerfullness, the gospel of goocl 
nature, the gospel of good health. Let us pay some attention to 
our bodies. Take care of our bodies, and our souls will take care 
of themselves. Good health! Audi believe that the time will 
come when the public thought will be so great and grand that it 
will be looked upon as infamous to perpetuate disease. I believe 



26 



INGEBSOLL'S NEW LECTURE, 



the time will come when man will not fill the future with con- 
sumption and insanity. I believe the time will come, when we 
study ourselves, and understand the laws of health, that we will 
say, "We are under obligation to put the flags of health in the 
cheeks of our children." Even if I got to heaven, and had a harp, 
I would hate to look back upon my children and grandchildren, 
and see them diseased, deformed, crazed, all suffering the penalties 
of crimes I had committed. 

I, then, believe in the gospel of good health, and I believe in a 
gospel of good living. You can not make any God happy by fast- 
ing. Let us have good food, and let us have it well cooked— and 
it is a thousand times better to know how to cook it than it is to 
understand any theology in the world. I believe in the gospel of 
good clothes ; I believe in the gospel of good houses ; in the gospel 
of water and soap. I believe in the gospel of intelligence, in the 
gospel of education. The school-house is my cathedral. The 
universe is my Bible. I believe in that gospel of justice that we 
must reap what we sow. 

I do not believe in forgiveness. If I rob Mr. Smith and God for- 
gives me, how does that help Smith. If I, by slander, cover some 
poor girl with the leprosy of some imputed crime, and she withers 
away like a blighted flower, and afterward I get forgiveness, how 
does that help her ? If there is another world we have got to set- 
tle. No bankrupt court there. Pay down. The Christians say, that 
among the ancient Jews, if you committed a crime you had to kill 
a sheep, now they say, " Charge it." "Put it upon the slate." It 
won't do, for every crime you commit you must answer to your- 
self and to the one you injure. And if you have ever clothed 
another with unhappiness, as with a garment of pain, you will 
never be quite as happy as though you hadn't done that thing. 
No forgiveness. Eternal, inexorable, everlasting justice. That is 
what I believe in. And if it goes hard with me, I will stand it, 
and I will stick to my logic and I will bear it like a man. 

And I believe, too, in the gospel of liberty, in giving to others 
what we claim for ourselves. I believe there is room everywhere 
for thought, and the more liberty you give away the more you 
will have. In liberty extravagance is economy. Let us be just. 
Let us be generous to each other. 

I believe in the gospel of intelligence. That is the only lever 
capable of raising mankind. Intelligence must be the savior of 
this world. Humanity is the grand religion, and no God can put 



" WHAT SHALL WE DO TO BE SAVED?" 



27 



another in hell in another world who has made a little heaven in 
this. God cannot make a man miserable if that man has made 
somebody else happy. God cannot hate anybody who is capable 
of loving anybody. 

So I believe in this great gospel of generosity. 

"Ah! but," they say, "it won't do. You must believe." I say 
no. My gospel of health will bring life. My gospel of intelligence, 
my gospel of good living, my gospel of good-fellowship will cover 
the world with happy homes. My doctrine will put carpets upon 
your floors, pictures upon your walls. My doctrine will put books 
upon your shelves, ideas in your minds. My doctrine will rid the 
world of the abnormal monsters born of the ignorance of super- 
stition. My doctrine will give us health, wealth, and happiness. 
That is what I want. That is what I believe in. Give us intelli- 
gence. In a little while a man may find that he cannot steal 
without robbing himself. He will find that he cannot murder 
without assassinating his own joy. He will find that every 
crime is a mistake. He will find that only that man carries the 
cross who does wrong, and that the man who does right the cross 
turns to wings upon his shoulders that will bear him upward 
forever. He will find that intelligent self-love embraces within 
its mighty arms all the human race. 

" Oh," but they say to me, " you take away immortality." I do 
not. If we are immortal it is a fact in nature, and we are not 
indebted to priests for it, nor to Bibles for it, and it cannot be 
destroyed by unbelief. 

As long as we love we will hope to live, and when the one dies 
that we love we will say, " Oh, that we could meet again !" And 
whether we do or not, it will not be the work of theology. It will 
be a fact in nature. I would not for my life destroy one star of 
human hope ; but I want it so that when a poor woman rocks the 
cradle, and sings a lullaby to the dimpled darling, that she will not 
be compelled to believe that, ninety-nine chances in a hundred, she 
is raising kindling-wood for hell. One world at a time— that is 
my doctrine. 

It is said in the Testament, " Sufficient unto the day is the evil 
thereof ; " and I say, sufficient unto each world is the evil thereof. 
And suppose, after all, that death does end all, next to eternal joy, 
next to being forever with those we love and those who have loved 
us, next to that is to be wrapt in the dreamless drapery of eternal 
peace. 



28 



INGERSOLVS NEW LECTURE. 



Next to eternal life is eternal death. Upon the shadowy shore 
of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been 
curtained by the everlasting dark will never know again the touch 
of tears. Lips that have been touched by eternal silence will never 
utter another word of grief. Hearts of dust do not break ; the 
dead do not weep. And I had rather think of those I have loved, 
and those I have lost, as having returned, as having become a 
part of the elemental wealth of the world— I would rather 
think of them as unconscious dust— I would rather think of 
them as gurgling in the stream, floating in the clouds, bursting in * 
the foam of light upon the shores of worlds— I would rather think 
of them as the inanimate and eternally unconscious, than to have 
even a suspicion that their naked souls had been clutched by an 
orthodox God. 

But for me, I will leave the dead where nature leaves them* 
And whatever flower of hope springs up in my heart I will cherish ; 
but I can not believe that there is any being in this universe who 
has created a human soul for eternal pain. And I would rather 
that every God would destroy himself ; I would rather that we all 
should go to eternal chaos, to black and starless night, than that 
just one soul should suffer eternal agony. I have made up my 
mind that if there is a God, he will be merciful to the merciful. 
Upon that rock, I stand. That he will forgive the forgiving. 
Upon that rock I stand. That every man should be true to him- 
self, and that there is no world, no star, in which honesty is a 
crime. And upon that rock I stand. The honest man, the good, 
kind, sweet woman, the happy child, has nothing to fear, neither 
in this world nor the world to come. And upon that rock I stand. 



IngersolPs Answer to Prof. Swing, Dr* Thomas 
and Others. 

After looking over the replies made to his new lecture, CoL 
Ingersoll was asked by a Tribune reporter what he thought of 
them ? He replied as follows : 

"I think they dodge the point. The real point is this: If 
salvation by faith is the real doctrine of Christianity, I asked on 
Sunday before last, and I still ask, why didn't Matthew tell it ? 
I still insist that Mark should have remembered it, and I shall 
always believe that Luke ought, at least, to have noticed it. I 
was endeavoring to show that modern Christianity has for its 
basis an interpolation. I think I showed it. The only gospel on 
the orthodox side is that of John, and that was certainly not 
written, or did not appear in its present form, until long after the 
others were written. I know very well that the Catholic Church 
claimed during the Dark Ages, and still claims, that references 
had been made to the Gospels by persons living in the first, second, 
and third centuries ; but I believe such manuscripts were manu- 
factured by the Catholic Church. For many years in Europe 
there was not one person in 20,000 who could read and write. 
During that time the Church had in its keeping the literature of 
our world. They interpolated as they pleased. They created. 
They destroyed. In other words, they did whatever in their opinion 
was necessary to substantiate the faith. The gentlemen who saw 
fit to reply did not answer the question, and I again call upon 
the clergy to explain to the people why, if salvation depended 
upon belief in the Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew didn't mention it. 
Some one has said that Christ didn't make known this doctrine of 
salvation by belief or faith until after His resurrection. Cer- 
tainly none of the gospels were written until after His resurrec- 
tion ; and if He made that doctrine known after His resurrection, 



29 



30 



IJS0ERS0LV8 ANSWER 



and before His ascension, it should have been in Matthew, Mark, 
and Luke, as well as John. 

The replies of the clergy show that they have not investigated 
the subject; that they are not well acquainted with the New 
Testament. In other words, they have not read it except with the 
regulation theological bias. There is one thing I wish to correct 
here. In an editoral in the Tribune it was stated that I had 
admitted that Christ was beyond and above Buddha, Zoroaster, 
Confucius, and others. I didn't say so. Another point was made 
against me, and those who made it seemed to think it was a good 
one. In my lecture I asked why it was that the Disciples of Christ 
wrote in Greek, whereas, in fact, they understood only Hebrew. 
It is now claimed that Greek was the language of Jerusalem at 
that time; that Hebrew had fallen into disuse; that no one under- 
stood it except the literati and the highly educated. If I fell into 
an error upon this point it was because I relied upon the New 
Testament. I find in the twenty-first chapter of the Acts an ac- 
count of Paul having been mobbed in the city of Jerusalem ; that 
he was protected by a Chief Captain and some soldiers; that, 
when upon the stairs of the castle to which he was being taken 
for protection, he obtained leave from the Captain to speak unto 
the people. In the fortieth verse of that chapter I find the fol- 
lowing; 

"And when he had given him license, Paul stood on the stairs 
and beckoned with the hand unto the people ; and when there was 
made a great silence he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue, 
saying—" 

And then follows the speech of Paul, wherein he gives an 
account of his conversion. It seems a little curious to me that 
Paul, for the purpose of quieting a mob, would speak to that mob 
in an unknown language. If I were mobbed in the city of 
Chicago, and wished to defend myself with an explanation, I cer- 
tainly would not make that explanation in Choctaw, even if I un- 
derstood that tongue. My present opinion is that I would speak in 
English ; and the reason I would speak in English is because that 
language is generally understood in this city. And so I conclude 
from the account in the twenty-first chapter of the Acts that 
"Hebrew was the language of Jerusalem at that time, or that Paul 
would not have addressed the mob in that tongue." 

" Did you read Mr. Courtney's answer ? " 

"I read what Mr. Courtney read from others, and think some of 
his quotations very good ; and have no doubt that the authors will 
feel complimented by being quoted." 

* But what about there being ' belief ' in Matthew ? " 



TO PROF. SWING, BR. THOMAS AND OTHERS. 31 



11 Mr. Courtney says that certain people were cured of diseases 
on account of faith. Admitting that mumps, measles, and whoop- 
ing-cough could be cured in that way, there is not even a sugges- 
tion that salvation depended upon a like faith. I think he can 
hardly afford to rely upon the miracles of the New Testament to 
prove his doctrine. There is one instance in which a miracle was 
performed by Christ without His knowledge. And I hardly think 
that even Mr. Courtney would insist that any faith could have 
been great enough for that. The fact is, I believe that all these 
miracles were ascribed to Christ long after His death, and that 
Christ never, at any time or place, pretended to have any super- 
natural power whatever. Neither do I believe that He claimed 
any supernatural origin. He claimed simply to be a man— no less, 
no more. I don't believe Mr. Courtney is satisfied with his own 
reply." 

" And now as to Prof. Swing ? " 

" Mr. Swing has been out of the orthodox church so long that he 
seems to have forgotten the reasons for which he left it. I don't 
believe there is an orthodox minister in the city of Chicago who 
will agree with Mr. Swing that salvation by faith is no longer 
preached. Prof. Swing seems to think it of no importance who 
wrote the Gospel of St. Matthew. In this I agree with him. 
Judging from what he said, there is hardly difference enough of 
opinion between us to justify a reply on his part. He, however, 
makes one mistake. I did not in the lecture say one word about 
tearing churches down. I have no objection to people building all 
the churches they wish. While I admit that it is a pretty sight to 
see children on a morning in June going through the fields to 
the country church, I still insist that the beauty of that sight 
doesn't answer the question how it is that Matthew forgot to say 
anything about salvation through Christ. Prof. Swing is a man of 
poetic temperament; but this is not a poetic question." 

" How did the card of Dr. Thomas strike you ? " 

" I think the reply of Dr. Thomas in the best possible spirit. I 
regard him to-day as the best intellect in the Methodist denomina- 
tion. He seems to have what is generally understood as a Christ- 
ian spirit. He has always treated me with perfect fairness, and I 
should have said long ago many grateful things, had I not feared I 
might hurt him with his own people. He seems to be by nature a 
perfectly fair man; and I know of no man in the United States 
for whom I have a profounder respect. Of course, I don't agree 
with Mr. Thomas. I think in many things he is mistaken. But I 



INGERS0LV8 ANSWER. 



believe him to be perfectly sincere. There is one trouble about 
him —he is growing; and this fact will no doubt give great trouble 
to many of his brethren. Certain Methodist hazelbrush feel a 
little uneasy in the shadow of this oak. 

"Are you going to make a formal reply to their sermons ?" 

"Not unless something better is done than has been. Of course 
1 don't know what another Sabbath may bring forth. I am wait- 
ing. But of one thing I feel perfectly assured ; that no man in the 
United States, or in the world, can account for the fact, if we are 
to be saved only by faith in Christ, that Matthew forgot it, that 
Luke said nothing about it, and that Mark never mentioned it ex-„ 
cept in two passages written by another person. Until that is 
answered, as one grave-digger says to the other in "Hamlet," I 
shall say: 'Ay, tell me that and unyoke." In the meantime, I 
wish to keep on the best terms with all parties concerned. I can- 
not see why my forgiving spirit fails to gain their sincere praise." 





[1] 



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